# GaussianUDF: Inferring Unsigned Distance Functions through 3D Gaussian Splatting

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.19458 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.19458/

## Key facts

- Cited by 15 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 54 of its 65 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 25 Mar 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 54)

- [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)
- [DeepSDF: Learning Continuous Signed Distance Functions for Shape Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.05103/) (2019)
- [Occupancy Networks: Learning 3D Reconstruction in Function Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.03828/) (2018)
- [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)
- [pixelNeRF: Neural Radiance Fields from One or Few Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.02190/) (2020)
- [4D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Dynamic Scene Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.08528/) (2023)
- [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)
- [DreamGaussian: Generative Gaussian Splatting for Efficient 3D Content Creation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.16653/) (2023)
- [Scaffold-GS: Structured 3D Gaussians for View-Adaptive Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00109/) (2023)
- [Mip-Splatting: Alias-free 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16493/) (2023)
- [UNISURF: Unifying Neural Implicit Surfaces and Radiance Fields for Multi-View Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.10078/) (2021)
- [SuGaR: Surface-Aligned Gaussian Splatting for Efficient 3D Mesh Reconstruction and High-Quality Mesh Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.12775/) (2023)
- [Neuralangelo: High-Fidelity Neural Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.03092/) (2023)
- [Putting NeRF on a Diet: Semantically Consistent Few-Shot View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.00677/) (2021)
- [Neural Unsigned Distance Fields for Implicit Function Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.13938/) (2020)
- [Gaussian Opacity Fields: Efficient Adaptive Surface Reconstruction in Unbounded Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.10772/) (2024)
- [Geo-Neus: Geometry-Consistent Neural Implicit Surfaces Learning for Multi-view Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.15848/) (2022)
- [High-quality Surface Reconstruction using Gaussian Surfels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.17774/) (2024)
- [Neural-Pull: Learning Signed Distance Functions from Point Clouds by Learning to Pull Space onto Surfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13495/) (2020)
- [NeuSG: Neural Implicit Surface Reconstruction with 3D Gaussian Splatting Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00846/) (2023)
- [Improving neural implicit surfaces geometry with patch warping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.09648/) (2021)
- [Recent Advances in 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.11134/) (2024)
- [HF-NeuS: Improved Surface Reconstruction Using High-Frequency Details](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.07850/) (2022)
- [Deep Fashion3D: A Dataset and Benchmark for 3D Garment Reconstruction from Single Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.12753/) (2020)
- [GSDF: 3DGS Meets SDF for Improved Rendering and Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.16964/) (2024)
- [3DGSR: Implicit Surface Reconstruction with 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.00409/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 15 of 15)

- [MaterialRefGS: Reflective Gaussian Splatting with Multi-view Consistent Material Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.11387/) (2025)
- [Reconstructing 4D Spatial Intelligence: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.21045/) (2025)
- [SparseRecon: Neural Implicit Surface Reconstruction from Sparse Views with Feature and Depth Consistencies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.00366/) (2025)
- [Learning Bijective Surface Parameterization for Inferring Signed Distance Functions from Sparse Point Clouds with Grid Deformation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.23670/) (2025)
- [GAP: Gaussianize Any Point Clouds with Text Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.05631/) (2025)
- [VA-GS: Enhancing the Geometric Representation of Gaussian Splatting via View Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.11473/) (2025)
- [Speeding Up the Learning of 3D Gaussians with Much Shorter Gaussian Lists](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.09277/) (2026)
- [From Blobs to Spokes: High-Fidelity Surface Reconstruction via Oriented Gaussians](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.07337/) (2026)
- [Confidence-Based Mesh Extraction from 3D Gaussians](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.24725/) (2026)
- [High Resolution UDF Meshing via Iterative Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.17212/) (2025)
- [3D Gaussian Splatting with Self-Constrained Priors for High Fidelity Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.19682/) (2026)
- [SGAD-SLAM: Splatting Gaussians at Adjusted Depth for Better Radiance Fields in RGBD SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.21055/) (2026)
- [City-Level 3D Surface Reconstruction with Viewpoint Orientation Partitioning and Scene Completion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.03771/) (2026)
- [Sparse-View Surface Reconstruction using Gaussian Splatting through High-Confidence Depth Propagation with Normal Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.03765/) (2026)
- [Volume Rendering with Metric--Phase Fields for Thin Structures and Sign-Ambiguous Geometry](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.13088/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Reconstructing open surfaces from multi-view images is vital in digitalizing complex objects in daily life. A widely used strategy is to learn unsigned distance functions (UDFs) by checking if their appearance conforms to the image observations through neural rendering. However, it is still hard to learn continuous and implicit UDF representations through 3D Gaussians splatting (3DGS) due to the discrete and explicit scene representation, i.e., 3D Gaussians. To resolve this issue, we propose a novel approach to bridge the gap between 3D Gaussians and UDFs. Our key idea is to overfit thin and flat 2D Gaussian planes on surfaces, and then, leverage the self-supervision and gradient-based inference to supervise unsigned distances in both near and far area to surfaces. To this end, we introduce novel constraints and strategies to constrain the learning of 2D Gaussians to pursue more stable optimization and more reliable self-supervision, addressing the challenges brought by complicated gradient field on or near the zero level set of UDFs. We report numerical and visual comparisons with the state-of-the-art on widely used benchmarks and real data to show our advantages in terms of accuracy, efficiency, completeness, and sharpness of reconstructed open surfaces with boundaries.