# Reflective Gaussian Splatting

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.19282 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.19282/

## Key facts

- Cited by 42 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 26 Dec 2024.

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 42)

- [MaterialRefGS: Reflective Gaussian Splatting with Multi-view Consistent Material Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.11387/) (2025)
- [Digital Twin Generation from Visual Data: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.13159/) (2025)
- [Anti-Aliased 2D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.11252/) (2025)
- [AG2aussian: Anchor-Graph Structured Gaussian Splatting for Instance-Level 3D Scene Understanding and Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.01740/) (2025)
- [4C4D: 4 Camera 4D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.04063/) (2026)
- [RGS-DR: Deferred Reflections and Residual Shading in 2D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.18468/) (2025)
- [TextureSplat: Per-Primitive Texture Mapping for Reflective Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.13348/) (2025)
- [GOGS: High-Fidelity Geometry and Relighting for Glossy Objects via Gaussian Surfels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.14563/) (2025)
- [Splatwizard: A Benchmark Toolkit for 3D Gaussian Splatting Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.24742/) (2025)
- [Benchmarking PhD-Level Coding in 3D Geometric Computer Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.30038/) (2026)
- [RT-Splatting: Joint Reflection-Transmission Modeling with Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.18263/) (2026)
- [RefRef: A Dataset and Benchmark for Reconstructing Refractive and Reflective Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.05848/) (2025)
- [GTAvatar: Bridging Gaussian Splatting and Texture Mapping for Relightable and Editable Gaussian Avatars](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.09162/) (2025)
- [GAINS: Gaussian-based Inverse Rendering from Sparse Multi-View Captures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.09925/) (2025)
- [RT-GS: Gaussian Splatting with Reflection and Transmittance Primitives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.00509/) (2026)
- [LumiMotion: Improving Gaussian Relighting with Scene Dynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.10994/) (2026)
- [GOR-IS: 3D Gaussian Object Removal in the Intrinsic Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.00498/) (2026)
- [TransmissiveGS: Residual-Guided Disentangled Gaussian Splatting for Transmissive Scene Reconstruction and Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.10705/) (2026)
- [Geometry Gaussians: Decoupling Appearance and Geometry in Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.05124/) (2026)
- [CTRL-GS: Cascaded Temporal Residue Learning for 4D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.18306/) (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)
- [UTrice: Unifying Primitives in Differentiable Ray Tracing and Rasterization via Triangles for Particle-Based 3D Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.04421/) (2025)
- [HybridSplat: Fast Reflection-baked Gaussian Tracing using Hybrid Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.08334/) (2025)
- [Beyond a Single Light: A Large-Scale Aerial Dataset for Urban Scene Reconstruction Under Varying Illumination](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.14200/) (2025)
- [Rotated Lights for Consistent and Efficient 2D Gaussians Inverse Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.08724/) (2026)
- [SSR-GS: Separating Specular Reflection in Gaussian Splatting for Glossy Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.05152/) (2026)
- [PhyGaP: Physically-Grounded Gaussians with Polarization Cues](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.14001/) (2026)
- [RefracGS: Novel View Synthesis Through Refractive Water Surfaces with 3D Gaussian Ray Tracing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.21695/) (2026)
- [Relightable Gaussian Splatting for Virtual Production Using Image-Based Illumination](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.09024/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Novel view synthesis has experienced significant advancements owing to increasingly capable NeRF- and 3DGS-based methods. However, reflective object reconstruction remains challenging, lacking a proper solution to achieve real-time, high-quality rendering while accommodating inter-reflection. To fill this gap, we introduce a Reflective Gaussian splatting (Ref-Gaussian) framework characterized with two components: (I) Physically based deferred rendering that empowers the rendering equation with pixel-level material properties via formulating split-sum approximation; (II) Gaussian-grounded inter-reflection that realizes the desired inter-reflection function within a Gaussian splatting paradigm for the first time. To enhance geometry modeling, we further introduce material-aware normal propagation and an initial per-Gaussian shading stage, along with 2D Gaussian primitives. Extensive experiments on standard datasets demonstrate that Ref-Gaussian surpasses existing approaches in terms of quantitative metrics, visual quality, and compute efficiency. Further, we show that our method serves as a unified solution for both reflective and non-reflective scenes, going beyond the previous alternatives focusing on only reflective scenes. Also, we illustrate that Ref-Gaussian supports more applications such as relighting and editing.