# Towards a Robust Framework for NeRF Evaluation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.18079 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.18079/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 23 of its 29 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 29 May 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 23 of 23)

- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [Instant Neural Graphics Primitives with a Multiresolution Hash Encoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.05989/) (2022)
- [Implicit Neural Representations with Periodic Activation Functions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.09661/) (2020)
- [Mip-NeRF: A Multiscale Representation for Anti-Aliasing Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.13415/) (2021)
- [Plenoxels: Radiance Fields without Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.05131/) (2021)
- [PlenOctrees for Real-time Rendering of Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14024/) (2021)
- [NeRF++: Analyzing and Improving Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.07492/) (2020)
- [Nerfstudio: A Modular Framework for Neural Radiance Field Development](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.04264/) (2023)
- [Neural Fields in Visual Computing and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.11426/) (2021)
- [Point-NeRF: Point-based Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.08845/) (2022)
- [NeRF in the Dark: High Dynamic Range View Synthesis from Noisy Raw Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.13679/) (2021)
- [DONeRF: Towards Real-Time Rendering of Compact Neural Radiance Fields using Depth Oracle Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.03231/) (2021)
- [WIRE: Wavelet Implicit Neural Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.05187/) (2023)
- [NeRF: Neural Radiance Field in 3D Vision: A Comprehensive Review (Updated Post-Gaussian Splatting)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.00379/) (2022)
- [SeaThru-NeRF: Neural Radiance Fields in Scattering Media](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.07743/) (2023)
- [AdaNeRF: Adaptive Sampling for Real-time Rendering of Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.10312/) (2022)
- [vMAP: Vectorised Object Mapping for Neural Field SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.01838/) (2023)
- [Tetra-NeRF: Representing Neural Radiance Fields Using Tetrahedra](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.09987/) (2023)
- [SCADE: NeRFs from Space Carving with Ambiguity-Aware Depth Estimates](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.13582/) (2023)
- [CuNeRF: Cube-Based Neural Radiance Field for Zero-Shot Medical Image Arbitrary-Scale Super Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.16242/) (2023)
- [LiveHand: Real-time and Photorealistic Neural Hand Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.07672/) (2023)
- [ScanNeRF: a Scalable Benchmark for Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.13762/) (2022)
- [Benchmarking Robustness in Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.04075/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Evaluating Neural Radiance Fields (NeRFs) for 3D Plant Geometry Reconstruction in Field Conditions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.10344/) (2024)
- [CrossScore: Towards Multi-View Image Evaluation and Scoring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.14409/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Neural Radiance Field (NeRF) research has attracted significant attention recently, with 3D modelling, virtual/augmented reality, and visual effects driving its application. While current NeRF implementations can produce high quality visual results, there is a conspicuous lack of reliable methods for evaluating them. Conventional image quality assessment methods and analytical metrics (e.g. PSNR, SSIM, LPIPS etc.) only provide approximate indicators of performance since they generalise the ability of the entire NeRF pipeline. Hence, in this paper, we propose a new test framework which isolates the neural rendering network from the NeRF pipeline and then performs a parametric evaluation by training and evaluating the NeRF on an explicit radiance field representation. We also introduce a configurable approach for generating representations specifically for evaluation purposes. This employs ray-casting to transform mesh models into explicit NeRF samples, as well as to "shade" these representations. Combining these two approaches, we demonstrate how different "tasks" (scenes with different visual effects or learning strategies) and types of networks (NeRFs and depth-wise implicit neural representations (INRs)) can be evaluated within this framework. Additionally, we propose a novel metric to measure task complexity of the framework which accounts for the visual parameters and the distribution of the spatial data. Our approach offers the potential to create a comparative objective evaluation framework for NeRF methods.