# CT-NeRF: Incremental Optimizing Neural Radiance Field and Poses with Complex Trajectory

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.13896 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.13896/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 20 of its 40 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 22 Apr 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 20 of 20)

- [DeepSDF: Learning Continuous Signed Distance Functions for Shape Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.05103/) (2019)
- [RAFT: Recurrent All-Pairs Field Transforms for Optical Flow](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.12039/) (2020)
- [ORB-SLAM: a Versatile and Accurate Monocular SLAM System](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1502.00956/) (2015)
- [LoFTR: Detector-Free Local Feature Matching with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.00680/) (2021)
- [ORB-SLAM3: An Accurate Open-Source Library for Visual, Visual-Inertial and Multi-Map SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.11898/) (2020)
- [Depth-supervised NeRF: Fewer Views and Faster Training for Free](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.02791/) (2021)
- [DROID-SLAM: Deep Visual SLAM for Monocular, Stereo, and RGB-D Cameras](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.10869/) (2021)
- [BARF: Bundle-Adjusting Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.06405/) (2021)
- [RegNeRF: Regularizing Neural Radiance Fields for View Synthesis from Sparse Inputs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.00724/) (2021)
- [iMAP: Implicit Mapping and Positioning in Real-Time](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.12352/) (2021)
- [NoPe-NeRF: Optimising Neural Radiance Field with No Pose Prior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.07388/) (2022)
- [Self-Calibrating Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.13826/) (2021)
- [Co-SLAM: Joint Coordinate and Sparse Parametric Encodings for Neural Real-Time SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.14377/) (2023)
- [DKM: Dense Kernelized Feature Matching for Geometry Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.00667/) (2022)
- [ESLAM: Efficient Dense SLAM System Based on Hybrid Representation of Signed Distance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.11704/) (2022)
- [F2-NeRF: Fast Neural Radiance Field Training with Free Camera Trajectories](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.15951/) (2023)
- [Progressively Optimized Local Radiance Fields for Robust View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.13791/) (2023)
- [Nerfbusters: Removing Ghostly Artifacts from Casually Captured NeRFs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.10532/) (2023)
- [LU-NeRF: Scene and Pose Estimation by Synchronizing Local Unposed NeRFs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.05410/) (2023)
- [CF-NeRF: Camera Parameter Free Neural Radiance Fields with Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.08760/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [LongSplat: Robust Unposed 3D Gaussian Splatting for Casual Long Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.14041/) (2025)
- [PCR-GS: COLMAP-Free 3D Gaussian Splatting via Pose Co-Regularizations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.13891/) (2025)
- [Joint attitude estimation and 3D neural reconstruction of non-cooperative space objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.20638/) (2025)
- [TVG-SLAM: Robust Gaussian Splatting SLAM with Tri-view Geometric Constraints](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.23207/) (2025)
- [RA-NeRF: Robust Neural Radiance Field Reconstruction with Accurate Camera Pose Estimation under Complex Trajectories](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.15242/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Neural radiance field (NeRF) has achieved impressive results in high-quality 3D scene reconstruction. However, NeRF heavily relies on precise camera poses. While recent works like BARF have introduced camera pose optimization within NeRF, their applicability is limited to simple trajectory scenes. Existing methods struggle while tackling complex trajectories involving large rotations. To address this limitation, we propose CT-NeRF, an incremental reconstruction optimization pipeline using only RGB images without pose and depth input. In this pipeline, we first propose a local-global bundle adjustment under a pose graph connecting neighboring frames to enforce the consistency between poses to escape the local minima caused by only pose consistency with the scene structure. Further, we instantiate the consistency between poses as a reprojected geometric image distance constraint resulting from pixel-level correspondences between input image pairs. Through the incremental reconstruction, CT-NeRF enables the recovery of both camera poses and scene structure and is capable of handling scenes with complex trajectories. We evaluate the performance of CT-NeRF on two real-world datasets, NeRFBuster and Free-Dataset, which feature complex trajectories. Results show CT-NeRF outperforms existing methods in novel view synthesis and pose estimation accuracy.