# GSDF: 3DGS Meets SDF for Improved Rendering and Reconstruction

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.16964 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.16964/

## Key facts

- Cited by 83 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 33 of its 48 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 25 Mar 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 33)

- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [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)
- [DeepSDF: Learning Continuous Signed Distance Functions for Shape Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.05103/) (2019)
- [Mip-NeRF 360: Unbounded Anti-Aliased Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.12077/) (2021)
- [NeuS: Learning Neural Implicit Surfaces by Volume Rendering for Multi-view Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.10689/) (2021)
- [Plenoxels: Radiance Fields without Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.05131/) (2021)
- [TensoRF: Tensorial Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.09517/) (2022)
- [Volume Rendering of Neural Implicit Surfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.12052/) (2021)
- [Neural Sparse Voxel Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.11571/) (2020)
- [Scaffold-GS: Structured 3D Gaussians for View-Adaptive Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00109/) (2023)
- [UNISURF: Unifying Neural Implicit Surfaces and Radiance Fields for Multi-View Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.10078/) (2021)
- [SuGaR: Surface-Aligned Gaussian Splatting for Efficient 3D Mesh Reconstruction and High-Quality Mesh Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.12775/) (2023)
- [Point-NeRF: Point-based Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.08845/) (2022)
- [Neuralangelo: High-Fidelity Neural Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.03092/) (2023)
- [SplaTAM: Splat, Track & Map 3D Gaussians for Dense RGB-D SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02126/) (2023)
- [PhysGaussian: Physics-Integrated 3D Gaussians for Generative Dynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.12198/) (2023)
- [Neural Point-Based Graphics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.08240/) (2019)
- [NeuS2: Fast Learning of Neural Implicit Surfaces for Multi-view Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.05231/) (2022)
- [Differentiable Surface Splatting for Point-based Geometry Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.04173/) (2019)
- [BakedSDF: Meshing Neural SDFs for Real-Time View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.14859/) (2023)
- [GaussianPro: 3D Gaussian Splatting with Progressive Propagation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.14650/) (2024)
- [NeRF-SLAM: Real-Time Dense Monocular SLAM with Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.13641/) (2022)
- [VR-GS: A Physical Dynamics-Aware Interactive Gaussian Splatting System in Virtual Reality](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.16663/) (2024)
- [NeuSG: Neural Implicit Surface Reconstruction with 3D Gaussian Splatting Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00846/) (2023)
- [Grid-guided Neural Radiance Fields for Large Urban Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.14001/) (2023)
- [Visibility-aware Multi-view Stereo Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.07928/) (2020)
- [POCO: Point Convolution for Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.01831/) (2022)
- [VR-NeRF: High-Fidelity Virtualized Walkable Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.02542/) (2023)
- [PermutoSDF: Fast Multi-View Reconstruction with Implicit Surfaces using Permutohedral Lattices](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.12562/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 83)

- [Gaussian Opacity Fields: Efficient Adaptive Surface Reconstruction in Unbounded Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.10772/) (2024)
- [RaDe-GS: Rasterizing Depth in Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.01467/) (2024)
- [FlashGS: Efficient 3D Gaussian Splatting for Large-scale and High-resolution Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.07967/) (2024)
- [3D Gaussian Splatting: Survey, Technologies, Challenges, and Opportunities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.17418/) (2024)
- [Director3D: Real-world Camera Trajectory and 3D Scene Generation from Text](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.17601/) (2024)
- [CityGaussianV2: Efficient and Geometrically Accurate Reconstruction for Large-Scale Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.00771/) (2024)
- [Neural Signed Distance Function Inference through Splatting 3D Gaussians Pulled on Zero-Level Set](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.14189/) (2024)
- [MILo: Mesh-In-the-Loop Gaussian Splatting for Detailed and Efficient Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.24096/) (2025)
- [GaussianRoom: Improving 3D Gaussian Splatting with SDF Guidance and Monocular Cues for Indoor Scene Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.19671/) (2024)
- [Horizon-GS: Unified 3D Gaussian Splatting for Large-Scale Aerial-to-Ground Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.01745/) (2024)
- [What Is The Best 3D Scene Representation for Robotics? From Geometric to Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.03422/) (2025)
- [Trim 3D Gaussian Splatting for Accurate Geometry Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.07499/) (2024)
- [Sparse2DGS: Geometry-Prioritized Gaussian Splatting for Surface Reconstruction from Sparse Views](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.20378/) (2025)
- [MAtCha Gaussians: Atlas of Charts for High-Quality Geometry and Photorealism From Sparse Views](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.06767/) (2024)
- [GigaGS: Scaling up Planar-Based 3D Gaussians for Large Scene Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.06685/) (2024)
- [Quadratic Gaussian Splatting: High Quality Surface Reconstruction with Second-order Geometric Primitives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.16392/) (2024)
- [StreetSurfGS: Scalable Urban Street Surface Reconstruction with Planar-based Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.04354/) (2024)
- [GausSurf: Geometry-Guided 3D Gaussian Splatting for Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.19454/) (2024)
- [Advancing Extended Reality with 3D Gaussian Splatting: Innovations and Prospects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.06257/) (2024)
- [GaussianUDF: Inferring Unsigned Distance Functions through 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.19458/) (2025)
- [Gaussian Splatting with Discretized SDF for Relightable Assets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.15629/) (2025)
- [Revisiting Depth Representations for Feed-Forward 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.05327/) (2025)
- [GS-ROR2: Bidirectional-guided 3DGS and SDF for Reflective Object Relighting and Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.18544/) (2024)
- [MonoGSDF: Exploring Monocular Geometric Cues for Gaussian Splatting-Guided Implicit Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.16898/) (2024)
- [GS-2DGS: Geometrically Supervised 2DGS for Reflective Object Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.13110/) (2025)
- [GS-Occ3D: Scaling Vision-only Occupancy Reconstruction with Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.19451/) (2025)
- [PINGS: Gaussian Splatting Meets Distance Fields within a Point-Based Implicit Neural Map](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.05752/) (2025)
- [Evolving High-Quality Rendering and Reconstruction in a Unified Framework with Contribution-Adaptive Regularization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.00881/) (2025)
- [3DGabSplat: 3D Gabor Splatting for Frequency-adaptive Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.05343/) (2025)
- [2DGS-Room: Seed-Guided 2D Gaussian Splatting with Geometric Constrains for High-Fidelity Indoor Scene Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.03428/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Presenting a 3D scene from multiview images remains a core and long-standing challenge in computer vision and computer graphics. Two main requirements lie in rendering and reconstruction. Notably, SOTA rendering quality is usually achieved with neural volumetric rendering techniques, which rely on aggregated point/primitive-wise color and neglect the underlying scene geometry. Learning of neural implicit surfaces is sparked from the success of neural rendering. Current works either constrain the distribution of density fields or the shape of primitives, resulting in degraded rendering quality and flaws on the learned scene surfaces. The efficacy of such methods is limited by the inherent constraints of the chosen neural representation, which struggles to capture fine surface details, especially for larger, more intricate scenes. To address these issues, we introduce GSDF, a novel dual-branch architecture that combines the benefits of a flexible and efficient 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) representation with neural Signed Distance Fields (SDF). The core idea is to leverage and enhance the strengths of each branch while alleviating their limitation through mutual guidance and joint supervision. We show on diverse scenes that our design unlocks the potential for more accurate and detailed surface reconstructions, and at the meantime benefits 3DGS rendering with structures that are more aligned with the underlying geometry.