# RGS-DR: Deferred Reflections and Residual Shading in 2D Gaussian Splatting

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.18468 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.18468/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 36 of its 45 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 25 Apr 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 36)

- [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)
- [Plenoxels: Radiance Fields without Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.05131/) (2021)
- [2D Gaussian Splatting for Geometrically Accurate Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17888/) (2024)
- [Direct Voxel Grid Optimization: Super-fast Convergence for Radiance Fields Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.11215/) (2021)
- [Neural Sparse Voxel Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.11571/) (2020)
- [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)
- [Ref-NeRF: Structured View-Dependent Appearance for Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.03907/) (2021)
- [NeRV: Neural Reflectance and Visibility Fields for Relighting and View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.03927/) (2020)
- [NeRD: Neural Reflectance Decomposition from Image Collections](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.03918/) (2020)
- [PhySG: Inverse Rendering with Spherical Gaussians for Physics-based Material Editing and Relighting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.00674/) (2021)
- [PGSR: Planar-based Gaussian Splatting for Efficient and High-Fidelity Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.06521/) (2024)
- [GaussianShader: 3D Gaussian Splatting with Shading Functions for Reflective Surfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17977/) (2023)
- [Octree-GS: Towards Consistent Real-time Rendering with LOD-Structured 3D Gaussians](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17898/) (2024)
- [Neural-PIL: Neural Pre-Integrated Lighting for Reflectance Decomposition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.14373/) (2021)
- [TensoIR: Tensorial Inverse Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.12461/) (2023)
- [NeRO: Neural Geometry and BRDF Reconstruction of Reflective Objects from Multiview Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.17398/) (2023)
- [NeRFactor: Neural Factorization of Shape and Reflectance Under an Unknown Illumination](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.01970/) (2021)
- [Revising Densification in Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.06109/) (2024)
- [Pixel-GS: Density Control with Pixel-aware Gradient for 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.15530/) (2024)
- [Deep Reflectance Volumes: Relightable Reconstructions from Multi-View Photometric Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.09892/) (2020)
- [ENVIDR: Implicit Differentiable Renderer with Neural Environment Lighting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.13022/) (2023)
- [3D Gaussian Splatting with Deferred Reflection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.18454/) (2024)
- [Improved Direct Voxel Grid Optimization for Radiance Fields Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.05085/) (2022)
- [GI-GS: Global Illumination Decomposition on Gaussian Splatting for Inverse Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.02619/) (2024)
- [Reflective Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.19282/) (2024)
- [DeferredGS: Decoupled and Editable Gaussian Splatting with Deferred Shading](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.09412/) (2024)
- [Textured Gaussians for Enhanced 3D Scene Appearance Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.18625/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [GOGS: High-Fidelity Geometry and Relighting for Glossy Objects via Gaussian Surfels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.14563/) (2025)
- [Spec-Gloss Surfels and Normal-Diffuse Priors for Relightable Glossy Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.02069/) (2025)
- [Detailed Geometry and Appearance from Opportunistic Motion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.26665/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In this work, we address specular appearance in inverse rendering using 2D Gaussian splatting with deferred shading and argue for a refinement stage to improve specular detail, thereby bridging the gap with reconstruction-only methods. Our pipeline estimates editable material properties and environment illumination while employing a directional residual pass that captures leftover view-dependent effects for further refining novel view synthesis. In contrast to per-Gaussian shading with shortest-axis normals and normal residuals, which tends to result in more noisy geometry and specular appearance, a pixel-deferred surfel formulation with specular residuals yields sharper highlights, cleaner materials, and improved editability. We evaluate our approach on rendering and reconstruction quality on three popular datasets featuring glossy objects, and also demonstrate high-quality relighting and material editing.