# RaySplats: Ray Tracing based Gaussian Splatting

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.19196 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.19196/

## Key facts

- Cited by 14 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 31 Jan 2025.

## Built on by (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [GeoSVR: Taming Sparse Voxels for Geometrically Accurate Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.18090/) (2025)
- [AAA-Gaussians: Anti-Aliased and Artifact-Free 3D Gaussian Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.12811/) (2025)
- [MeshSplats: Mesh-Based Rendering with Gaussian Splatting Initialization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.07754/) (2025)
- [Advances in Radiance Field for Dynamic Scene: From Neural Field to Gaussian Field](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.10049/) (2025)
- [MADrive: Memory-Augmented Driving Scene Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.21520/) (2025)
- [UniGS: Unified Geometry-Aware Gaussian Splatting for Multimodal Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.12174/) (2025)
- [REdiSplats: Ray Tracing for Editable Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.12284/) (2025)
- [HybridSplat: Fast Reflection-baked Gaussian Tracing using Hybrid Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.08334/) (2025)
- [Animated 3DGS Avatars in Diverse Scenes with Consistent Lighting and Shadows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.01660/) (2026)
- [Pose-Free Omnidirectional Gaussian Splatting for 360-Degree Videos with Consistent Depth Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.23324/) (2026)
- [Directed Distance Fields for Constant-Time Ray Queries on Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.00817/) (2026)
- [RAGA: Real Time Ray Traced Gaussian Shadow Casting for 3DGS Avatar-Scene Interaction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.29329/) (2026)
- [Floating Radiance Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.05920/) (2026)
- [Learning Spherical Occupancy Profiles for Multi-View 3D Reconstruction and Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.23206/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) is a process that enables the direct creation of 3D objects from 2D images. This representation offers numerous advantages, including rapid training and rendering. However, a significant limitation of 3DGS is the challenge of incorporating light and shadow reflections, primarily due to the utilization of rasterization rather than ray tracing for rendering. This paper introduces RaySplats, a model that employs ray-tracing based Gaussian Splatting. Rather than utilizing the projection of Gaussians, our method employs a ray-tracing mechanism, operating directly on Gaussian primitives represented by confidence ellipses with RGB colors. In practice, we compute the intersection between ellipses and rays to construct ray-tracing algorithms, facilitating the incorporation of meshes with Gaussian Splatting models and the addition of lights, shadows, and other related effects.