# SplaTAM: Splat, Track & Map 3D Gaussians for Dense RGB-D SLAM

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.02126 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02126/

## Key facts

- Cited by 388 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 41 of its 57 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 4 Dec 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 41)

- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [ScanNet: Richly-annotated 3D Reconstructions of Indoor Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.04405/) (2017)
- [4D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Dynamic Scene Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.08528/) (2023)
- [The Replica Dataset: A Digital Replica of Indoor Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.05797/) (2019)
- [ORB-SLAM3: An Accurate Open-Source Library for Visual, Visual-Inertial and Multi-Map SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.11898/) (2020)
- [ORB-SLAM2: an Open-Source SLAM System for Monocular, Stereo and RGB-D Cameras](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.06475/) (2016)
- [ScanNet++: A High-Fidelity Dataset of 3D Indoor Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.11417/) (2023)
- [Deformable 3D Gaussians for High-Fidelity Monocular Dynamic Scene Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.13101/) (2023)
- [Dynamic 3D Gaussians: Tracking by Persistent Dynamic View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.09713/) (2023)
- [DROID-SLAM: Deep Visual SLAM for Monocular, Stereo, and RGB-D Cameras](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.10869/) (2021)
- [NICE-SLAM: Neural Implicit Scalable Encoding for SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.12130/) (2021)
- [Point-NeRF: Point-based Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.08845/) (2022)
- [iMAP: Implicit Mapping and Positioning in Real-Time](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.12352/) (2021)
- [Real-time Photorealistic Dynamic Scene Representation and Rendering with 4D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.10642/) (2023)
- [Past, Present, and Future of Simultaneous Localization And Mapping: Towards the Robust-Perception Age](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.05830/) (2016)
- [Differentiable Surface Splatting for Point-based Geometry Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.04173/) (2019)
- [NeRF-SLAM: Real-Time Dense Monocular SLAM with Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.13641/) (2022)
- [Co-SLAM: Joint Coordinate and Sparse Parametric Encodings for Neural Real-Time SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.14377/) (2023)
- [NICER-SLAM: Neural Implicit Scene Encoding for RGB SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.03594/) (2023)
- [Point-SLAM: Dense Neural Point Cloud-based SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.04278/) (2023)
- [ESLAM: Efficient Dense SLAM System Based on Hybrid Representation of Signed Distance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.11704/) (2022)
- [CNN-SLAM: Real-time dense monocular SLAM with learned depth prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.03489/) (2017)
- [CodeSLAM - Learning a Compact, Optimisable Representation for Dense Visual SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.00874/) (2018)
- [Voxblox: Incremental 3D Euclidean Signed Distance Fields for On-Board MAV Planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.03631/) (2016)
- [Vox-Fusion: Dense Tracking and Mapping with Voxel-based Neural Implicit Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.15858/) (2022)
- [BundleFusion: Real-time Globally Consistent 3D Reconstruction using On-the-fly Surface Re-integration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1604.01093/) (2016)
- [iSDF: Real-Time Neural Signed Distance Fields for Robot Perception](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.02296/) (2022)
- [LaMAR: Benchmarking Localization and Mapping for Augmented Reality](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.10770/) (2022)
- [DeepTAM: Deep Tracking and Mapping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.01900/) (2018)
- [vMAP: Vectorised Object Mapping for Neural Field SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.01838/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 388)

- [MapAnything: Universal Feed-Forward Metric 3D Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.13414/) (2025)
- [3D Reconstruction with Spatial Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.16061/) (2024)
- [AnySplat: Feed-forward 3D Gaussian Splatting from Unconstrained Views](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.23716/) (2025)
- [Octree-GS: Towards Consistent Real-time Rendering with LOD-Structured 3D Gaussians](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17898/) (2024)
- [A Survey on 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.03890/) (2024)
- [MASt3R-SLAM: Real-Time Dense SLAM with 3D Reconstruction Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.12392/) (2024)
- [FLARE: Feed-forward Geometry, Appearance and Camera Estimation from Uncalibrated Sparse Views](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.12138/) (2025)
- [Gaussian-SLAM: Photo-realistic Dense SLAM with Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.10070/) (2023)
- [OpenGaussian: Towards Point-Level 3D Gaussian-based Open Vocabulary Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.02058/) (2024)
- [Recent Advances in 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.11134/) (2024)
- [Revising Densification in Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.06109/) (2024)
- [3D Gaussian as a New Era: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.07181/) (2024)
- [Toward General-Purpose Robots via Foundation Models: A Survey and Meta-Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.08782/) (2023)
- [SLAM3R: Real-Time Dense Scene Reconstruction from Monocular RGB Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.09401/) (2024)
- [GaussianFlow: Splatting Gaussian Dynamics for 4D Content Creation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.12365/) (2024)
- [GaussianImage: 1000 FPS Image Representation and Compression by 2D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.08551/) (2024)
- [FreeSplat: Generalizable 3D Gaussian Splatting Towards Free-View Synthesis of Indoor Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.17958/) (2024)
- [FlashGS: Efficient 3D Gaussian Splatting for Large-scale and High-resolution Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.07967/) (2024)
- [SGS-SLAM: Semantic Gaussian Splatting For Neural Dense SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.03246/) (2024)
- [FMGS: Foundation Model Embedded 3D Gaussian Splatting for Holistic 3D Scene Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.01970/) (2024)
- [GSDF: 3DGS Meets SDF for Improved Rendering and Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.16964/) (2024)
- [3D Gaussian Splatting: Survey, Technologies, Challenges, and Opportunities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.17418/) (2024)
- [How NeRFs and 3D Gaussian Splatting are Reshaping SLAM: a Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.13255/) (2024)
- [Deep Patch Visual SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.01654/) (2024)
- [Splat-SLAM: Globally Optimized RGB-only SLAM with 3D Gaussians](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.16544/) (2024)
- [RGBD GS-ICP SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.12550/) (2024)
- [MotionGS: Exploring Explicit Motion Guidance for Deformable 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.07707/) (2024)
- [PF3plat: Pose-Free Feed-Forward 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.22128/) (2024)
- [CG-SLAM: Efficient Dense RGB-D SLAM in a Consistent Uncertainty-aware 3D Gaussian Field](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.16095/) (2024)
- [FlowMap: High-Quality Camera Poses, Intrinsics, and Depth via Gradient Descent](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.15259/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Dense simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) is crucial for robotics and augmented reality applications. However, current methods are often hampered by the non-volumetric or implicit way they represent a scene. This work introduces SplaTAM, an approach that, for the first time, leverages explicit volumetric representations, i.e., 3D Gaussians, to enable high-fidelity reconstruction from a single unposed RGB-D camera, surpassing the capabilities of existing methods. SplaTAM employs a simple online tracking and mapping system tailored to the underlying Gaussian representation. It utilizes a silhouette mask to elegantly capture the presence of scene density. This combination enables several benefits over prior representations, including fast rendering and dense optimization, quickly determining if areas have been previously mapped, and structured map expansion by adding more Gaussians. Extensive experiments show that SplaTAM achieves up to 2x superior performance in camera pose estimation, map construction, and novel-view synthesis over existing methods, paving the way for more immersive high-fidelity SLAM applications.