# Generative Densification: Learning to Densify Gaussians for High-Fidelity Generalizable 3D Reconstruction

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.06234 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.06234/

## Key facts

- Cited by 18 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 53 of its 64 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 9 Dec 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 53)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [DINOv2: Learning Robust Visual Features without Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.07193/) (2023)
- [Emerging Properties in Self-Supervised Vision Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.14294/) (2021)
- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.09748/) (2022)
- [PointNet: Deep Learning on Point Sets for 3D Classification and Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.00593/) (2016)
- [pixelNeRF: Neural Radiance Fields from One or Few Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.02190/) (2020)
- [Objaverse: A Universe of Annotated 3D Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.08051/) (2022)
- [2D Gaussian Splatting for Geometrically Accurate Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17888/) (2024)
- [MVDream: Multi-view Diffusion for 3D Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.16512/) (2023)
- [Objaverse-XL: A Universe of 10M+ 3D Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.05663/) (2023)
- [MVSNeRF: Fast Generalizable Radiance Field Reconstruction from Multi-View Stereo](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.15595/) (2021)
- [LGM: Large Multi-View Gaussian Model for High-Resolution 3D Content Creation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.05054/) (2024)
- [pixelSplat: 3D Gaussian Splats from Image Pairs for Scalable Generalizable 3D Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.12337/) (2023)
- [Common Objects in 3D: Large-Scale Learning and Evaluation of Real-life 3D Category Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.00512/) (2021)
- [Google Scanned Objects: A High-Quality Dataset of 3D Scanned Household Items](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.11918/) (2022)
- [Point Transformer V3: Simpler, Faster, Stronger](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.10035/) (2023)
- [MVSplat: Efficient 3D Gaussian Splatting from Sparse Multi-View Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.14627/) (2024)
- [DL3DV-10K: A Large-Scale Scene Dataset for Deep Learning-based 3D Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.16256/) (2023)
- [Splatter Image: Ultra-Fast Single-View 3D Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.13150/) (2023)
- [GS-LRM: Large Reconstruction Model for 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.19702/) (2024)
- [GRM: Large Gaussian Reconstruction Model for Efficient 3D Reconstruction and Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.14621/) (2024)
- [DepthSplat: Connecting Gaussian Splatting and Depth](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.13862/) (2024)
- [Triplane Meets Gaussian Splatting: Fast and Generalizable Single-View 3D Reconstruction with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.09147/) (2023)
- [Infinite Nature: Perpetual View Generation of Natural Scenes from a Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.09855/) (2020)
- [Understanding Straight-Through Estimator in Training Activation Quantized Neural Nets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.05662/) (2019)
- [Understanding and Improving Layer Normalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.07013/) (2019)
- [3D Gaussian Splatting as Markov Chain Monte Carlo](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.09591/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 18 of 18)

- [Advances in Feed-Forward 3D Reconstruction and View Synthesis: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.14501/) (2025)
- [Uni3R: Unified 3D Reconstruction and Semantic Understanding via Generalizable Gaussian Splatting from Unposed Multi-View Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.03643/) (2025)
- [iLRM: An Iterative Large 3D Reconstruction Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.23277/) (2025)
- [SplatPainter: Interactive Authoring of 3D Gaussians from 2D Edits via Test-Time Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.05354/) (2025)
- [ConeGS: Error-Guided Densification Using Pixel Cones for Improved Reconstruction With Fewer Primitives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.06810/) (2025)
- [GaussianLens: Localized High-Resolution Reconstruction via On-Demand Gaussian Densification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.25603/) (2025)
- [SRSplat: Feed-Forward Super-Resolution Gaussian Splatting from Sparse Multi-View Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.12040/) (2025)
- [2Xplat: Decoupling Geometry and Appearance Modeling for Feed-Forward 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.21064/) (2026)
- [NoDrift3R: Raymap-Guided Coupling for Drift-Robust Unposed Feed-Forward 3D Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.07168/) (2026)
- [ATSplat: Compact Feed-forward 3D Gaussian Splatting with Adaptive Token Expansion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.20417/) (2026)
- [UniSem: Generalizable Semantic 3D Reconstruction from Sparse Unposed Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.17519/) (2026)
- [L2D2-GS: Learning to Densify for Feedforward Dynamic Gaussian Scene Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.29374/) (2026)
- [AdaptiveSplat:Texture Aware Controllable 3D Gaussian Allocation for Feed-Forward Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.04256/) (2026)
- [SubSplat: High-Resolution Pixel-aligned 3DGS via Sub-pixel Gaussian Reparameterization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.20813/) (2026)
- [Learning Adaptive Semantic Gaussian Allocation for 3D Occupancy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.21896/) (2026)
- [Learning Gaussian Structure: Intervention-Guided Density Control for Feed-Forward Driving Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.11077/) (2026)
- [TruncGradGS: Improved 3D Gaussian Splatting via Truncated Gradient Updates](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.03534/) (2026)
- [VS-Splat: Voxel-Selective feed-forward Gaussian Splatting for end-to-end 3D object reconstruction from sparse-views](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.12343/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Generalized feed-forward Gaussian models have achieved significant progress in sparse-view 3D reconstruction by leveraging prior knowledge from large multi-view datasets. However, these models often struggle to represent high-frequency details due to the limited number of Gaussians. While the densification strategy used in per-scene 3D Gaussian splatting (3D-GS) optimization can be adapted to the feed-forward models, it may not be ideally suited for generalized scenarios. In this paper, we propose Generative Densification, an efficient and generalizable method to densify Gaussians generated by feed-forward models. Unlike the 3D-GS densification strategy, which iteratively splits and clones raw Gaussian parameters, our method up-samples feature representations from the feed-forward models and generates their corresponding fine Gaussians in a single forward pass, leveraging the embedded prior knowledge for enhanced generalization. Experimental results on both object-level and scene-level reconstruction tasks demonstrate that our method outperforms state-of-the-art approaches with comparable or smaller model sizes, achieving notable improvements in representing fine details.
