# Ref-GS: Directional Factorization for 2D Gaussian Splatting

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.00905 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.00905/

## Key facts

- Cited by 29 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 39 of its 54 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 1 Dec 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 39)

- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [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)
- [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)
- [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)
- [NeRF in the Wild: Neural Radiance Fields for Unconstrained Photo Collections](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.02268/) (2020)
- [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)
- [Direct Voxel Grid Optimization: Super-fast Convergence for Radiance Fields Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.11215/) (2021)
- [NeRF++: Analyzing and Improving Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.07492/) (2020)
- [Block-NeRF: Scalable Large Scene Neural View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.05263/) (2022)
- [Ref-NeRF: Structured View-Dependent Appearance for Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.03907/) (2021)
- [Modular Primitives for High-Performance Differentiable Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.03277/) (2020)
- [Extracting Triangular 3D Models, Materials, and Lighting From Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.12503/) (2021)
- [GaussianShader: 3D Gaussian Splatting with Shading Functions for Reflective Surfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17977/) (2023)
- [Differentiable Surface Splatting for Point-based Geometry Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.04173/) (2019)
- [GS-IR: 3D Gaussian Splatting for Inverse Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16473/) (2023)
- [TensoIR: Tensorial Inverse Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.12461/) (2023)
- [NeRO: Neural Geometry and BRDF Reconstruction of Reflective Objects from Multiview Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.17398/) (2023)
- [Relightable 3D Gaussians: Realistic Point Cloud Relighting with BRDF Decomposition and Ray Tracing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16043/) (2023)
- [NeILF: Neural Incident Light Field for Physically-based Material Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.07182/) (2022)
- [Neural Point Catacaustics for Novel-View Synthesis of Reflections](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.01087/) (2023)
- [NeILF++: Inter-Reflectable Light Fields for Geometry and Material Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.17147/) (2023)
- [Spec-Gaussian: Anisotropic View-Dependent Appearance for 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.15870/) (2024)
- [ENVIDR: Implicit Differentiable Renderer with Neural Environment Lighting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.13022/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 29 of 29)

- [EnvGS: Modeling View-Dependent Appearance with Environment Gaussian](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.15215/) (2024)
- [MaterialRefGS: Reflective Gaussian Splatting with Multi-view Consistent Material Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.11387/) (2025)
- [Neural Shell Texture Splatting: More Details and Fewer Primitives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.20200/) (2025)
- [3R-GS: Best Practice in Optimizing Camera Poses Along with 3DGS](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.04294/) (2025)
- [Spherical Voronoi: Directional Appearance as a Differentiable Partition of the Sphere](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.14180/) (2025)
- [RGS-DR: Deferred Reflections and Residual Shading in 2D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.18468/) (2025)
- [SAGOnline: Segment Any Gaussians Online](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.08219/) (2025)
- [GOGS: High-Fidelity Geometry and Relighting for Glossy Objects via Gaussian Surfels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.14563/) (2025)
- [MetroGS: Efficient and Stable Reconstruction of Geometrically Accurate High-Fidelity Large-Scale Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.19172/) (2025)
- [RT-Splatting: Joint Reflection-Transmission Modeling with Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.18263/) (2026)
- [RT-GS: Gaussian Splatting with Reflection and Transmittance Primitives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.00509/) (2026)
- [TransmissiveGS: Residual-Guided Disentangled Gaussian Splatting for Transmissive Scene Reconstruction and Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.10705/) (2026)
- [GS-2M: Material-aware Gaussian Splatting for High-fidelity Mesh Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.22276/) (2025)
- [Spec-Gloss Surfels and Normal-Diffuse Priors for Relightable Glossy Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.02069/) (2025)
- [Pygmalion Effect in Vision: Image-to-Clay Translation for Reflective Geometry Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.21098/) (2025)
- [PolarGuide-GSDR: 3D Gaussian Splatting Driven by Polarization Priors and Deferred Reflection for Real-World Reflective Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.02664/) (2025)
- [FROMAT: Multiview Material Appearance Transfer via Few-Shot Self-Attention Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.09617/) (2025)
- [Beyond a Single Light: A Large-Scale Aerial Dataset for Urban Scene Reconstruction Under Varying Illumination](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.14200/) (2025)
- [Augmented Radiance Field: A General Framework for Enhanced Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.19916/) (2026)
- [SSR-GS: Separating Specular Reflection in Gaussian Splatting for Glossy Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.05152/) (2026)
- [GLINT: Modeling Scene-Scale Transparency via Gaussian Radiance Transport](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.26181/) (2026)
- [Detailed Geometry and Appearance from Opportunistic Motion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.26665/) (2026)
- [RefGlass-GS: A UAV-Enabled Fusion Framework for Photorealistic, Semantic and Interactive Digitization of Reflective Glass Facades via Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.28826/) (2026)
- [Learning Spectral and Polarimetric Clues for One-to-Multimodal Novel View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.02372/) (2026)
- [PanoLess: Environment Reconstruction from Partial Reflective Views](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.25362/) (2026)
- [STARS-GS: Structure-Aware Regularized Gaussian Splatting for Large-Scale Aerial Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.03447/) (2026)
- [RGS: Reflection-aware Gaussian Splatting via Learning Geometry Continuity for Reflective Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.19421/) (2026)
- [Casual Flash Lighting for Gaussian Splat Inverse Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.06035/) (2026)
- [Gaussian Splatting with Reflections Guided by What is Seen](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.13757/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In this paper, we introduce Ref-GS, a novel approach for directional light factorization in 2D Gaussian splatting, which enables photorealistic view-dependent appearance rendering and precise geometry recovery. Ref-GS builds upon the deferred rendering of Gaussian splatting and applies directional encoding to the deferred-rendered surface, effectively reducing the ambiguity between orientation and viewing angle. Next, we introduce a spherical Mip-grid to capture varying levels of surface roughness, enabling roughness-aware Gaussian shading. Additionally, we propose a simple yet efficient geometry-lighting factorization that connects geometry and lighting via the vector outer product, significantly reducing renderer overhead when integrating volumetric attributes. Our method achieves superior photorealistic rendering for a range of open-world scenes while also accurately recovering geometry.