# SLAM-Former: Putting SLAM into One Transformer

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.16909 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.16909/

## Key facts

- Cited by 9 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 38 of its 47 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 21 Sep 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 38)

- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [ScanNet: Richly-annotated 3D Reconstructions of Indoor Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.04405/) (2017)
- [DUSt3R: Geometric 3D Vision Made Easy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.14132/) (2023)
- [VGGT: Visual Geometry Grounded Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.11651/) (2025)
- [ORB-SLAM: a Versatile and Accurate Monocular SLAM System](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1502.00956/) (2015)
- [Grounding Image Matching in 3D with MASt3R](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09756/) (2024)
- [The Replica Dataset: A Digital Replica of Indoor Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.05797/) (2019)
- [ORB-SLAM3: An Accurate Open-Source Library for Visual, Visual-Inertial and Multi-Map SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.11898/) (2020)
- [MVSNet: Depth Inference for Unstructured Multi-view Stereo](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.02505/) (2018)
- [ScanNet++: A High-Fidelity Dataset of 3D Indoor Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.11417/) (2023)
- [MegaDepth: Learning Single-View Depth Prediction from Internet Photos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.00607/) (2018)
- [DROID-SLAM: Deep Visual SLAM for Monocular, Stereo, and RGB-D Cameras](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.10869/) (2021)
- [Hypersim: A Photorealistic Synthetic Dataset for Holistic Indoor Scene Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.02523/) (2020)
- [Continuous 3D Perception Model with Persistent State](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.12387/) (2025)
- [BlendedMVS: A Large-scale Dataset for Generalized Multi-view Stereo Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.10127/) (2019)
- [ARKitScenes: A Diverse Real-World Dataset For 3D Indoor Scene Understanding Using Mobile RGB-D Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.08897/) (2021)
- [Fast3R: Towards 3D Reconstruction of 1000+ Images in One Forward Pass](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.13928/) (2025)
- [GS-SLAM: Dense Visual SLAM with 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.11700/) (2023)
- [DeepMVS: Learning Multi-view Stereopsis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.00650/) (2018)
- [3D Reconstruction with Spatial Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.16061/) (2024)
- [MASt3R-SLAM: Real-Time Dense SLAM with 3D Reconstruction Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.12392/) (2024)
- [NeRF-SLAM: Real-Time Dense Monocular SLAM with Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.13641/) (2022)
- [DeepV2D: Video to Depth with Differentiable Structure from Motion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.04605/) (2018)
- [DivPrune: Diversity-based Visual Token Pruning for Large Multimodal Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.02175/) (2025)
- [NICER-SLAM: Neural Implicit Scene Encoding for RGB SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.03594/) (2023)
- [Streaming 4D Visual Geometry Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.11539/) (2025)
- [CodeSLAM - Learning a Compact, Optimisable Representation for Dense Visual SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.00874/) (2018)
- [VGGT-SLAM: Dense RGB SLAM Optimized on the SL(4) Manifold](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.12549/) (2025)
- [GO-SLAM: Global Optimization for Consistent 3D Instant Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.02436/) (2023)
- [DeepFactors: Real-Time Probabilistic Dense Monocular SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.05049/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 9 of 9)

- [AMB3R: Accurate Feed-forward Metric-scale 3D Reconstruction with Backend](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.20343/) (2025)
- [Efficient Feature-Free Initialization for Monocular Visual-Inertial Systems Using a Feed-Forward 3D Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.17327/) (2026)
- [SLAMFormer-∞: Infinite SLAM Transformer for Unbounded Frontend and Backend Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.03429/) (2026)
- [BA-T: An Iterative Transformer for Two-View Bundle Adjustment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.03287/) (2026)
- [Scal3R: Learning Efficient Multi-Relative Pose Query for Scalable Online 3D Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.04201/) (2026)
- [AMB3R-SLAM: Kilometer-scale SLAM with Hierarchical Backend](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.19518/) (2026)
- [World SLAM Model: Joint World Modeling for SLAM and Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.32626/) (2026)
- [F2 SLAM: Turning Feed-Forward Geometry into Persistent Factors for SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.05207/) (2026)
- [Remember, Revisit, Revise: Scaffold Memory for Long-Horizon 3D Geometry](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.19674/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We present SLAM-Former, a neural approach that integrates full SLAM capabilities into a single transformer. Similar to traditional SLAM systems, SLAM-Former comprises both a frontend and a back-end that operate in tandem. The frontend processes sequential monocular images in real-time for incremental mapping and tracking, while the backend performs global refinement to ensure a geometrically consistent result. This alternating execution allows the frontend and back-end to mutually promote one another, enhancing overall system performance. Comprehensive experimental results demonstrate that SLAM- Former achieves superior or highly competitive performance compared to state-of-the-art dense SLAM methods.