# Space-time 2D Gaussian Splatting for Accurate Surface Reconstruction under Complex Dynamic Scenes

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.18852 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.18852/

## Key facts

- Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 45 of its 58 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 27 Sep 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 45)

- [PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01703/) (2019)
- [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)
- [NeuS: Learning Neural Implicit Surfaces by Volume Rendering for Multi-view Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.10689/) (2021)
- [D-NeRF: Neural Radiance Fields for Dynamic Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13961/) (2020)
- [Nerfies: Deformable Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.12948/) (2020)
- [4D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Dynamic Scene Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.08528/) (2023)
- [2D Gaussian Splatting for Geometrically Accurate Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17888/) (2024)
- [Volume Rendering of Neural Implicit Surfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.12052/) (2021)
- [PlenOctrees for Real-time Rendering of Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14024/) (2021)
- [Deformable 3D Gaussians for High-Fidelity Monocular Dynamic Scene Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.13101/) (2023)
- [Neural Scene Flow Fields for Space-Time View Synthesis of Dynamic Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13084/) (2020)
- [K-Planes: Explicit Radiance Fields in Space, Time, and Appearance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.10241/) (2023)
- [Dynamic 3D Gaussians: Tracking by Persistent Dynamic View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.09713/) (2023)
- [Open3D: A Modern Library for 3D Data Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.09847/) (2018)
- [SuGaR: Surface-Aligned Gaussian Splatting for Efficient 3D Mesh Reconstruction and High-Quality Mesh Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.12775/) (2023)
- [HexPlane: A Fast Representation for Dynamic Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.09632/) (2023)
- [Point-NeRF: Point-based Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.08845/) (2022)
- [Real-time Photorealistic Dynamic Scene Representation and Rendering with 4D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.10642/) (2023)
- [MonoSDF: Exploring Monocular Geometric Cues for Neural Implicit Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.00665/) (2022)
- [Dynamic View Synthesis from Dynamic Monocular Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.06468/) (2021)
- [Fast Dynamic Radiance Fields with Time-Aware Neural Voxels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.15285/) (2022)
- [Spacetime Gaussian Feature Splatting for Real-Time Dynamic View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.16812/) (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)
- [PGSR: Planar-based Gaussian Splatting for Efficient and High-Fidelity Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.06521/) (2024)
- [DynIBaR: Neural Dynamic Image-Based Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.11082/) (2022)
- [Tensor4D : Efficient Neural 4D Decomposition for High-fidelity Dynamic Reconstruction and Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.11610/) (2022)
- [BANMo: Building Animatable 3D Neural Models from Many Casual Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.12761/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [Reconstructing 4D Spatial Intelligence: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.21045/) (2025)
- [GauSTAR: Gaussian Surface Tracking and Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.10283/) (2025)
- [GSO-SLAM: Bidirectionally Coupled Gaussian Splatting and Direct Visual Odometry](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.11714/) (2026)
- [textit4DSurf: High-Fidelity Dynamic Scene Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.28064/) (2026)
- [Grassmannian Splatting I: Moving rank-2 Spacetime Surfels for Dynamic Scene Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.10489/) (2026)
- [Future Rendering neq Future Surface: A Benchmark and Dataset for Dynamic Surface Reconstruction Beyond the Observed Window](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.21471/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Previous surface reconstruction methods either suffer from low geometric accuracy or lengthy training times when dealing with real-world complex dynamic scenes involving multi-person activities, and human-object interactions. To tackle the dynamic contents and the occlusions in complex scenes, we present a space-time 2D Gaussian Splatting approach. Specifically, to improve geometric quality in dynamic scenes, we learn canonical 2D Gaussian splats and deform these 2D Gaussian splats while enforcing the disks of the Gaussian located on the surface of the objects by introducing depth and normal regularizers. Further, to tackle the occlusion issues in complex scenes, we introduce a compositional opacity deformation strategy, which further reduces the surface recovery of those occluded areas. Experiments on real-world sparse-view video datasets and monocular dynamic datasets demonstrate that our reconstructions outperform state-of-the-art methods, especially for the surface of the details. The project page and more visualizations can be found at: https://tb2-sy.github.io/st-2dgs/.