# LP-3DGS: Learning to Prune 3D Gaussian Splatting

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.18784 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.18784/

## Key facts

- Cited by 55 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 20 of its 26 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 29 May 2024.

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

- [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)
- [Categorical Reparameterization with Gumbel-Softmax](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.01144/) (2016)
- [Estimating or Propagating Gradients Through Stochastic Neurons for Conditional Computation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1308.3432/) (2013)
- [Mip-NeRF 360: Unbounded Anti-Aliased Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.12077/) (2021)
- [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)
- [TensoRF: Tensorial Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.09517/) (2022)
- [SuGaR: Surface-Aligned Gaussian Splatting for Efficient 3D Mesh Reconstruction and High-Quality Mesh Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.12775/) (2023)
- [LightGaussian: Unbounded 3D Gaussian Compression with 15x Reduction and 200+ FPS](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17245/) (2023)
- [Compact 3D Gaussian Representation for Radiance Field](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.13681/) (2023)
- [Neural Point-Based Graphics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.08240/) (2019)
- [DNGaussian: Optimizing Sparse-View 3D Gaussian Radiance Fields with Global-Local Depth Normalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.06912/) (2024)
- [Mini-Splatting: Representing Scenes with a Constrained Number of Gaussians](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.14166/) (2024)
- [Depth-Regularized Optimization for 3D Gaussian Splatting in Few-Shot Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.13398/) (2023)
- [RadSplat: Radiance Field-Informed Gaussian Splatting for Robust Real-Time Rendering with 900+ FPS](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.13806/) (2024)
- [FreGS: 3D Gaussian Splatting with Progressive Frequency Regularization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.06908/) (2024)
- [GeoGaussian: Geometry-aware Gaussian Splatting for Scene Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.11324/) (2024)
- [PDF: Point Diffusion Implicit Function for Large-scale Scene Neural Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.01773/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 55)

- [CityGaussianV2: Efficient and Geometrically Accurate Reconstruction for Large-Scale Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.00771/) (2024)
- [MaskGaussian: Adaptive 3D Gaussian Representation from Probabilistic Masks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.20522/) (2024)
- [GaussianSpa: An "Optimizing-Sparsifying" Simplification Framework for Compact and High-Quality 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.06019/) (2024)
- [PCGS: Progressive Compression of 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.08511/) (2025)
- [Optimized Minimal 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.16924/) (2025)
- [NeRF Is a Valuable Assistant for 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.23374/) (2025)
- [Steepest Descent Density Control for Compact 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.05587/) (2025)
- [ReCon-GS: Continuum-Preserved Gaussian Streaming for Fast and Compact Reconstruction of Dynamic Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.24325/) (2025)
- [Temporally Compressed 3D Gaussian Splatting for Dynamic Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.05700/) (2024)
- [Gaussian Herding across Pens: An Optimal Transport Perspective on Global Gaussian Reduction for 3DGS](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.09534/) (2025)
- [Unifying Color and Lightness Correction with View-Adaptive Curve Adjustment for Robust 3D Novel View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.18322/) (2026)
- [FastAvatar: Towards Unified and Fast 3D Avatar Reconstruction with Large Gaussian Reconstruction Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.19754/) (2025)
- [Faster and Better 3D Splatting via Group Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.07608/) (2024)
- [SpeeDe3DGS: Speedy Deformable 3D Gaussian Splatting with Temporal Pruning and Motion Grouping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.07917/) (2025)
- [RAP: Fast Feedforward Rendering-Free Attribute-Guided Primitive Importance Score Prediction for Efficient 3D Gaussian Splatting Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.19753/) (2026)
- [ContraGS: Codebook-Condensed and Trainable Gaussian Splatting for Fast, Memory-Efficient Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.03775/) (2025)
- [Prune Wisely, Reconstruct Sharply: Compact 3D Gaussian Splatting via Adaptive Pruning and Difference-of-Gaussian Primitives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.24136/) (2026)
- [LEGO-SLAM: Language-Embedded Gaussian Optimization SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.16144/) (2025)
- [POTR: Post-Training 3DGS Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.14821/) (2026)
- [GaussianPOP: Principled Simplification Framework for Compact 3D Gaussian Splatting via Error Quantification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.06830/) (2026)
- [ControlGS: Consistent Structural Compression Control for Deployment-Aware Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.10473/) (2025)
- [SVR-GS: Spatially Variant Regularization for Probabilistic Masks in 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.11116/) (2025)
- [Gradient-Driven Natural Selection for Compact 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.16980/) (2025)
- [NVGS: Neural Visibility for Occlusion Culling in 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.19202/) (2025)
- [NanoGS: Training-Free Gaussian Splat Simplification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.16103/) (2026)
- [EA-3DGS: Efficient and Adaptive 3D Gaussians with Highly Enhanced Quality for outdoor scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.10787/) (2025)
- [Confident Splatting: Confidence-Based Compression of 3D Gaussian Splatting via Learnable Beta Distributions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.22973/) (2025)
- [Distilled-3DGS:Distilled 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.14037/) (2025)
- [Spectral Defense Against Resource-Targeting Attack in 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.12796/) (2026)
- [GS^2: Graph-based Spatial Distribution Optimization for Compact 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.01884/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Recently, 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) has become one of the mainstream methodologies for novel view synthesis (NVS) due to its high quality and fast rendering speed. However, as a point-based scene representation, 3DGS potentially generates a large number of Gaussians to fit the scene, leading to high memory usage. Improvements that have been proposed require either an empirical and preset pruning ratio or importance score threshold to prune the point cloud. Such hyperparamter requires multiple rounds of training to optimize and achieve the maximum pruning ratio, while maintaining the rendering quality for each scene. In this work, we propose learning-to-prune 3DGS (LP-3DGS), where a trainable binary mask is applied to the importance score that can find optimal pruning ratio automatically. Instead of using the traditional straight-through estimator (STE) method to approximate the binary mask gradient, we redesign the masking function to leverage the Gumbel-Sigmoid method, making it differentiable and compatible with the existing training process of 3DGS. Extensive experiments have shown that LP-3DGS consistently produces a good balance that is both efficient and high quality.