# Gaussian Splatting SLAM

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.06741 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.06741/

## Key facts

- Cited by 415 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 34 of its 51 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 Dec 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 34)

- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [Instant Neural Graphics Primitives with a Multiresolution Hash Encoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.05989/) (2022)
- [Plenoxels: Radiance Fields without Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.05131/) (2021)
- [4D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Dynamic Scene Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.08528/) (2023)
- [ORB-SLAM: a Versatile and Accurate Monocular SLAM System](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1502.00956/) (2015)
- [Direct Voxel Grid Optimization: Super-fast Convergence for Radiance Fields Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.11215/) (2021)
- [Neural Sparse Voxel Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.11571/) (2020)
- [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)
- [DreamGaussian: Generative Gaussian Splatting for Efficient 3D Content Creation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.16653/) (2023)
- [ORB-SLAM2: an Open-Source SLAM System for Monocular, Stereo and RGB-D Cameras](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.06475/) (2016)
- [Dynamic 3D Gaussians: Tracking by Persistent Dynamic View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.09713/) (2023)
- [Differentiable Volumetric Rendering: Learning Implicit 3D Representations without 3D Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.07372/) (2019)
- [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)
- [Direct Sparse Odometry](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.02565/) (2016)
- [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)
- [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)
- [Vox-Fusion: Dense Tracking and Mapping with Voxel-based Neural Implicit Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.15858/) (2022)
- [SemanticFusion: Dense 3D Semantic Mapping with Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.05130/) (2016)
- [A micro Lie theory for state estimation in robotics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.01537/) (2018)
- [DeepFactors: Real-Time Probabilistic Dense Monocular SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.05049/) (2020)
- [DI-Fusion: Online Implicit 3D Reconstruction with Deep Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.05551/) (2020)
- [A General Optimization-based Framework for Local Odometry Estimation with Multiple Sensors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.03638/) (2019)
- [Approximate Differentiable Rendering with Algebraic Surfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.10606/) (2022)
- [Dense RGB SLAM with Neural Implicit Maps](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.08930/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 415)

- [PGSR: Planar-based Gaussian Splatting for Efficient and High-Fidelity Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.06521/) (2024)
- [3D Reconstruction with Spatial Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.16061/) (2024)
- [No Pose, No Problem: Surprisingly Simple 3D Gaussian Splats from Sparse Unposed Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.24207/) (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)
- [MUSt3R: Multi-view Network for Stereo 3D Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.01661/) (2025)
- [VGGT-SLAM: Dense RGB SLAM Optimized on the SL(4) Manifold](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.12549/) (2025)
- [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)
- [RadSplat: Radiance Field-Informed Gaussian Splatting for Robust Real-Time Rendering with 900+ FPS](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.13806/) (2024)
- [3D Gaussian as a New Era: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.07181/) (2024)
- [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)
- [SGS-SLAM: Semantic Gaussian Splatting For Neural Dense SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.03246/) (2024)
- [3D Gaussian Splatting: Survey, Technologies, Challenges, and Opportunities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.17418/) (2024)
- [Large Spatial Model: End-to-end Unposed Images to Semantic 3D](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.18956/) (2024)
- [How NeRFs and 3D Gaussian Splatting are Reshaping SLAM: a Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.13255/) (2024)
- [MagicDrive3D: Controllable 3D Generation for Any-View Rendering in Street Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.14475/) (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)
- [FlowMap: High-Quality Camera Poses, Intrinsics, and Depth via Gradient Descent](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.15259/) (2024)
- [LoopSplat: Loop Closure by Registering 3D Gaussian Splats](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.10154/) (2024)
- [Radiative Gaussian Splatting for Efficient X-ray Novel View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.04116/) (2024)
- [RoboGSim: A Real2Sim2Real Robotic Gaussian Splatting Simulator](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.11839/) (2024)
- [WildGS-SLAM: Monocular Gaussian Splatting SLAM in Dynamic Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.03886/) (2025)
- [GaussNav: Gaussian Splatting for Visual Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.11625/) (2024)
- [NavDP: Learning Sim-to-Real Navigation Diffusion Policy with Privileged Information Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.08712/) (2025)
- [EgoLifter: Open-world 3D Segmentation for Egocentric Perception](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.18118/) (2024)
- [SemGauss-SLAM: Dense Semantic Gaussian Splatting SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.07494/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We present the first application of 3D Gaussian Splatting in monocular SLAM, the most fundamental but the hardest setup for Visual SLAM. Our method, which runs live at 3fps, utilises Gaussians as the only 3D representation, unifying the required representation for accurate, efficient tracking, mapping, and high-quality rendering. Designed for challenging monocular settings, our approach is seamlessly extendable to RGB-D SLAM when an external depth sensor is available. Several innovations are required to continuously reconstruct 3D scenes with high fidelity from a live camera. First, to move beyond the original 3DGS algorithm, which requires accurate poses from an offline Structure from Motion (SfM) system, we formulate camera tracking for 3DGS using direct optimisation against the 3D Gaussians, and show that this enables fast and robust tracking with a wide basin of convergence. Second, by utilising the explicit nature of the Gaussians, we introduce geometric verification and regularisation to handle the ambiguities occurring in incremental 3D dense reconstruction. Finally, we introduce a full SLAM system which not only achieves state-of-the-art results in novel view synthesis and trajectory estimation but also reconstruction of tiny and even transparent objects.