# Human Hair Reconstruction with Strand-Aligned 3D Gaussians

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.14778 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.14778/

## Key facts

- Cited by 36 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 26 of its 54 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 23 Sep 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 26 of 26)

- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [Elucidating the Design Space of Diffusion-Based Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.00364/) (2022)
- [DreamFusion: Text-to-3D using 2D Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14988/) (2022)
- [NeuS: Learning Neural Implicit Surfaces by Volume Rendering for Multi-view Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.10689/) (2021)
- [BARF: Bundle-Adjusting Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.06405/) (2021)
- [Mixture of Volumetric Primitives for Efficient Neural Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.01954/) (2021)
- [GaussianAvatars: Photorealistic Head Avatars with Rigged 3D Gaussians](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02069/) (2023)
- [NeRSemble: Multi-view Radiance Field Reconstruction of Human Heads](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.03027/) (2023)
- [Instant Volumetric Head Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.12499/) (2022)
- [Relightable Gaussian Codec Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.03704/) (2023)
- [MonoGaussianAvatar: Monocular Gaussian Point-based Head Avatar](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.04558/) (2023)
- [HiFi4G: High-Fidelity Human Performance Rendering via Compact Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.03461/) (2023)
- [HeadGaS: Real-Time Animatable Head Avatars via 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02902/) (2023)
- [GaussianHair: Hair Modeling and Rendering with Light-aware Gaussians](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.10483/) (2024)
- [Neural Haircut: Prior-Guided Strand-Based Hair Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.05872/) (2023)
- [Neural Strands: Learning Hair Geometry and Appearance from Multi-View Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.14067/) (2022)
- [Matte Anything: Interactive Natural Image Matting with Segment Anything Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.04121/) (2023)
- [VolTeMorph: Realtime, Controllable and Generalisable Animation of Volumetric Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.00949/) (2022)
- [HairStep: Transfer Synthetic to Real Using Strand and Depth Maps for Single-View 3D Hair Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.02700/) (2023)
- [HHAvatar: Gaussian Head Avatar with Dynamic Hairs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.03029/) (2023)
- [NeuWigs: A Neural Dynamic Model for Volumetric Hair Capture and Animation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.00613/) (2022)
- [HAAR: Text-Conditioned Generative Model of 3D Strand-based Human Hairstyles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.11666/) (2023)
- [HVH: Learning a Hybrid Neural Volumetric Representation for Dynamic Hair Performance Capture](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.06904/) (2021)
- [GroomGen: A High-Quality Generative Hair Model Using Hierarchical Latent Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.02062/) (2023)
- [DeepSketchHair: Deep Sketch-based 3D Hair Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.07198/) (2019)
- [Rig3DGS: Creating Controllable Portraits from Casual Monocular Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.03723/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 36)

- [GAF: Gaussian Avatar Reconstruction from Monocular Videos via Multi-view Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.10209/) (2024)
- [SurFhead: Affine Rig Blending for Geometrically Accurate 2D Gaussian Surfel Head Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.11682/) (2024)
- [Quaffure: Real-Time Quasi-Static Neural Hair Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.10061/) (2024)
- [SimAvatar: Simulation-Ready Avatars with Layered Hair and Clothing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.09545/) (2024)
- [Im2Haircut: Single-view Strand-based Hair Reconstruction for Human Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.01469/) (2025)
- [VTGaussian-SLAM: RGBD SLAM for Large Scale Scenes with Splatting View-Tied 3D Gaussians](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.02741/) (2025)
- [HairCUP: Hair Compositional Universal Prior for 3D Gaussian Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.19481/) (2025)
- [StrandHead: Text to Hair-Disentangled 3D Head Avatars Using Human-Centric Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.11586/) (2024)
- [CHARM: Control-point-based 3D Anime Hairstyle Auto-Regressive Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.21114/) (2025)
- [NeuralFur: Animal Fur Reconstruction From Multi-View Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.12481/) (2026)
- [HyperGaussians: High-Dimensional Gaussian Splatting for High-Fidelity Animatable Face Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.02803/) (2025)
- [Neuralocks: Real-Time Dynamic Neural Hair Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.05191/) (2025)
- [SRM-Hair: Single Image Head Mesh Reconstruction via 3D Morphable Hair](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.06154/) (2025)
- [HairGS: Hair Strand Reconstruction based on 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.07774/) (2025)
- [DGH: Dynamic Gaussian Hair](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.17094/) (2025)
- [PhysHead: Simulation-Ready Gaussian Head Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.06467/) (2026)
- [GeomHair: Reconstruction of Hair Strands from Colorless 3D Scans](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.05376/) (2025)
- [HairWeaver: Few-Shot Photorealistic Hair Motion Synthesis with Sim-to-Real Guided Video Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.11117/) (2026)
- [SGAD-SLAM: Splatting Gaussians at Adjusted Depth for Better Radiance Fields in RGBD SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.21055/) (2026)
- [HairOrbit: Multi-view Aware 3D Hair Modeling from Single Portraits](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.02867/) (2026)
- [CGHair: Compact Gaussian Hair Reconstruction with Card Clustering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.03716/) (2026)
- [HairGPT: Strand-as-Language Autoregressive Modeling for Realistic 3D Hairstyle Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.08824/) (2026)
- [MoZoo:Unleashing Video Diffusion power in animal fur and muscle simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.13857/) (2026)
- [3D Skew Gaussian Splatting with Any Camera Trajectory Visualization Engine](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.18334/) (2026)
- [HairLRM: Strand-based Hair Modeling via Large Reconstruction Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.15238/) (2026)
- [HairCS: Reconstructing Strand-Based Hair from Hair Cards](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.16465/) (2026)
- [Unsupervised 3D Braided Hair Reconstruction from a Single-View Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.23072/) (2025)
- [PanoHair: Detailed Hair Strand Synthesis on Volumetric Heads](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.18944/) (2025)
- [FHAvatar: Fast and High-Fidelity Reconstruction of Face-and-Hair Composable 3D Head Avatar from Few Casual Captures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.23345/) (2026)
- [EfficientMonoHair: Fast Strand-Level Reconstruction from Monocular Video via Multi-View Direction Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.05794/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We introduce a new hair modeling method that uses a dual representation of classical hair strands and 3D Gaussians to produce accurate and realistic strand-based reconstructions from multi-view data. In contrast to recent approaches that leverage unstructured Gaussians to model human avatars, our method reconstructs the hair using 3D polylines, or strands. This fundamental difference allows the use of the resulting hairstyles out-of-the-box in modern computer graphics engines for editing, rendering, and simulation. Our 3D lifting method relies on unstructured Gaussians to generate multi-view ground truth data to supervise the fitting of hair strands. The hairstyle itself is represented in the form of the so-called strand-aligned 3D Gaussians. This representation allows us to combine strand-based hair priors, which are essential for realistic modeling of the inner structure of hairstyles, with the differentiable rendering capabilities of 3D Gaussian Splatting. Our method, named Gaussian Haircut, is evaluated on synthetic and real scenes and demonstrates state-of-the-art performance in the task of strand-based hair reconstruction.