# ColorGS: High-fidelity Surgical Scene Reconstruction with Colored Gaussian Splatting

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.18696 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.18696/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 14 of its 22 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 26 Aug 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [4D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Dynamic Scene Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.08528/) (2023)
- [HexPlane: A Fast Representation for Dynamic Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.09632/) (2023)
- [Spacetime Gaussian Feature Splatting for Real-Time Dynamic View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.16812/) (2023)
- [Gaussian-Flow: 4D Reconstruction with Dynamic 3D Gaussian Particle](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.03431/) (2023)
- [Neural Rendering for Stereo 3D Reconstruction of Deformable Tissues in Robotic Surgery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.15255/) (2022)
- [EndoSurf: Neural Surface Reconstruction of Deformable Tissues with Stereo Endoscope Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.11307/) (2023)
- [Learning How To Robustly Estimate Camera Pose in Endoscopic Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08023/) (2023)
- [3D-HGS: 3D Half-Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.02720/) (2024)
- [Deform3DGS: Flexible Deformation for Fast Surgical Scene Reconstruction with Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.17835/) (2024)
- [Reconstructing Sinus Anatomy from Endoscopic Video -- Towards a Radiation-free Approach for Quantitative Longitudinal Assessment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.08502/) (2020)
- [Dynamic Reconstruction of Deformable Soft-tissue with Stereo Scope in Minimal Invasive Surgery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.10867/) (2020)
- [Real-time Dense Reconstruction of Tissue Surface from Stereo Optical Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.12623/) (2020)
- [SVGS: Enhancing Gaussian Splatting Using Primitives with Spatially Varying Colors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.18966/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

High-fidelity reconstruction of deformable tissues from endoscopic videos remains challenging due to the limitations of existing methods in capturing subtle color variations and modeling global deformations. While 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) enables efficient dynamic reconstruction, its fixed per-Gaussian color assignment struggles with intricate textures, and linear deformation modeling fails to model consistent global deformation. To address these issues, we propose ColorGS, a novel framework that integrates spatially adaptive color encoding and enhanced deformation modeling for surgical scene reconstruction. First, we introduce Colored Gaussian Primitives, which employ dynamic anchors with learnable color parameters to adaptively encode spatially varying textures, significantly improving color expressiveness under complex lighting and tissue similarity. Second, we design an Enhanced Deformation Model (EDM) that combines time-aware Gaussian basis functions with learnable time-independent deformations, enabling precise capture of both localized tissue deformations and global motion consistency caused by surgical interactions. Extensive experiments on DaVinci robotic surgery videos and benchmark datasets (EndoNeRF, StereoMIS) demonstrate that ColorGS achieves state-of-the-art performance, attaining a PSNR of 39.85 (1.5 higher than prior 3DGS-based methods) and superior SSIM (97.25%) while maintaining real-time rendering efficiency. Our work advances surgical scene reconstruction by balancing high fidelity with computational practicality, critical for intraoperative guidance and AR/VR applications.