# S3LAM: Surfel Splatting SLAM for Geometrically Accurate Tracking and Mapping

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.20854 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.20854/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 22 of its 34 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 28 Jul 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 22 of 22)

- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [Mip-NeRF 360: Unbounded Anti-Aliased Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.12077/) (2021)
- [2D Gaussian Splatting for Geometrically Accurate Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17888/) (2024)
- [The Replica Dataset: A Digital Replica of Indoor Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.05797/) (2019)
- [ScanNet++: A High-Fidelity Dataset of 3D Indoor Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.11417/) (2023)
- [DROID-SLAM: Deep Visual SLAM for Monocular, Stereo, and RGB-D Cameras](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.10869/) (2021)
- [NICE-SLAM: Neural Implicit Scalable Encoding for SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.12130/) (2021)
- [iMAP: Implicit Mapping and Positioning in Real-Time](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.12352/) (2021)
- [Gaussian Splatting SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.06741/) (2023)
- [SplaTAM: Splat, Track & Map 3D Gaussians for Dense RGB-D SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02126/) (2023)
- [GS-SLAM: Dense Visual SLAM with 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.11700/) (2023)
- [High-quality Surface Reconstruction using Gaussian Surfels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.17774/) (2024)
- [Point-SLAM: Dense Neural Point Cloud-based SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.04278/) (2023)
- [Vox-Fusion: Dense Tracking and Mapping with Voxel-based Neural Implicit Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.15858/) (2022)
- [A micro Lie theory for state estimation in robotics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.01537/) (2018)
- [DI-Fusion: Online Implicit 3D Reconstruction with Deep Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.05551/) (2020)
- [NodeSLAM: Neural Object Descriptors for Multi-View Shape Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.04485/) (2020)
- [CG-SLAM: Efficient Dense RGB-D SLAM in a Consistent Uncertainty-aware 3D Gaussian Field](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.16095/) (2024)
- [SceneCode: Monocular Dense Semantic Reconstruction using Learned Encoded Scene Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.06482/) (2019)
- [2DGS-Room: Seed-Guided 2D Gaussian Splatting with Geometric Constrains for High-Fidelity Indoor Scene Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.03428/) (2024)
- [OVPC Mesh: 3D Free-space Representation for Local Ground Vehicle Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.10266/) (2018)
- [GauS-SLAM: Dense RGB-D SLAM with Gaussian Surfels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.01934/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Towards Next-Generation SLAM: A Survey on 3DGS-SLAM Focusing on Performance, Robustness, and Future Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.04251/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We propose S3LAM, a novel RGB-D SLAM system that leverages 2D surfel splatting to achieve highly accurate geometric representations for simultaneous tracking and mapping. Unlike existing 3DGS-based SLAM approaches that rely on 3D Gaussian ellipsoids, we utilize 2D Gaussian surfels as primitives for more efficient scene representation. By focusing on the surfaces of objects in the scene, this design enables S3LAM to reconstruct high-quality geometry, benefiting both mapping and tracking. To address inherent SLAM challenges including real-time optimization under limited viewpoints, we introduce a novel adaptive surface rendering strategy that improves mapping accuracy while maintaining computational efficiency. We further derive camera pose Jacobians directly from 2D surfel splatting formulation, highlighting the importance of our geometrically accurate representation that improves tracking convergence. Extensive experiments on both synthetic and real-world datasets validate that S3LAM achieves state-of-the-art performance. Code will be made publicly available.