# StableGS: A Floater-Free Framework for 3D Gaussian Splatting

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.18458 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.18458/

## Key facts

- Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 27 of its 31 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 24 Mar 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 27 of 27)

- [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)
- [DUSt3R: Geometric 3D Vision Made Easy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.14132/) (2023)
- [TensoRF: Tensorial Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.09517/) (2022)
- [2D Gaussian Splatting for Geometrically Accurate Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17888/) (2024)
- [Grounding Image Matching in 3D with MASt3R](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09756/) (2024)
- [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)
- [Zip-NeRF: Anti-Aliased Grid-Based Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.06706/) (2023)
- [Mip-Splatting: Alias-free 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16493/) (2023)
- [SuGaR: Surface-Aligned Gaussian Splatting for Efficient 3D Mesh Reconstruction and High-Quality Mesh Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.12775/) (2023)
- [3DMatch: Learning Local Geometric Descriptors from RGB-D Reconstructions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1603.08182/) (2016)
- [PGSR: Planar-based Gaussian Splatting for Efficient and High-Fidelity Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.06521/) (2024)
- [DNGaussian: Optimizing Sparse-View 3D Gaussian Radiance Fields with Global-Local Depth Normalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.06912/) (2024)
- [Gaussian Opacity Fields: Efficient Adaptive Surface Reconstruction in Unbounded Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.10772/) (2024)
- [Global Structure-from-Motion Revisited](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.20219/) (2024)
- [A Hierarchical 3D Gaussian Representation for Real-Time Rendering of Very Large Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.12080/) (2024)
- [Taming 3DGS: High-Quality Radiance Fields with Limited Resources](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.15643/) (2024)
- [Splatt3R: Zero-shot Gaussian Splatting from Uncalibrated Image Pairs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.13912/) (2024)
- [Depth-Regularized Optimization for 3D Gaussian Splatting in Few-Shot Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.13398/) (2023)
- [RaDe-GS: Rasterizing Depth in Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.01467/) (2024)
- [GSDF: 3DGS Meets SDF for Improved Rendering and Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.16964/) (2024)
- [AbsGS: Recovering Fine Details for 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.10484/) (2024)
- [Mode-GS: Monocular Depth Guided Anchored 3D Gaussian Splatting for Robust Ground-View Scene Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.04646/) (2024)

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

- [Opacity-Gradient Driven Density Control for Compact and Efficient Few-Shot 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.10257/) (2025)
- [Fix False Transparency by Noise Guided Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.15736/) (2025)
- [A Study of the Framework and Real-World Applications of Language Embedding for 3D Scene Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.05064/) (2025)
- [Towards High-Fidelity Gaussian Splatting with Queried-Convolution Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.12898/) (2025)
- [RefracGS: Novel View Synthesis Through Refractive Water Surfaces with 3D Gaussian Ray Tracing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.21695/) (2026)
- [ReorgGS: Equivalent Distribution Reorganization for 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.08739/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) reconstructions are plagued by stubborn ``floater" artifacts that degrade their geometric and visual fidelity. We are the first to reveal the root cause: a fundamental conflict in the 3DGS optimization process where the opacity gradients of floaters vanish when their blended color reaches a pseudo-equilibrium of canceling errors against the background, trapping them in a spurious local minimum. To resolve this, we propose StableGS, a novel framework that decouples geometric regularization from final appearance rendering. Its core is a Dual Opacity architecture that creates two separate rendering paths: a ``Geometric Regularization Path" to bear strong depth-based constraints for structural correctness, and an ``Appearance Refinement Path" to generate high-fidelity details upon this stable foundation. We complement this with a synergistic set of geometric constraints: a self-supervised depth consistency loss and an external geometric prior enabled by our efficient global scale optimization algorithm. Experiments on multiple benchmarks show StableGS not only eliminates floaters but also resolves the common blur-artifact trade-off, achieving state-of-the-art geometric accuracy and visual quality.