# VIGS-SLAM: Visual Inertial Gaussian Splatting SLAM

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.02293 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.02293/

## Key facts

- Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 42 of its 75 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 2 Dec 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 42)

- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [ORB-SLAM3: An Accurate Open-Source Library for Visual, Visual-Inertial and Multi-Map SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.11898/) (2020)
- [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)
- [KITTI-360: A Novel Dataset and Benchmarks for Urban Scene Understanding in 2D and 3D](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.13410/) (2021)
- [Direct Sparse Odometry](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.02565/) (2016)
- [iMAP: Implicit Mapping and Positioning in Real-Time](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.12352/) (2021)
- [VINS-Mono: A Robust and Versatile Monocular Visual-Inertial State Estimator](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.03852/) (2017)
- [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)
- [NeRF-SLAM: Real-Time Dense Monocular SLAM with Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.13641/) (2022)
- [Co-SLAM: Joint Coordinate and Sparse Parametric Encodings for Neural Real-Time SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.14377/) (2023)
- [NICER-SLAM: Neural Implicit Scene Encoding for RGB SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.03594/) (2023)
- [ESLAM: Efficient Dense SLAM System Based on Hybrid Representation of Signed Distance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.11704/) (2022)
- [Gaussian-SLAM: Photo-realistic Dense SLAM with Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.10070/) (2023)
- [Photo-SLAM: Real-time Simultaneous Localization and Photorealistic Mapping for Monocular, Stereo, and RGB-D Cameras](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16728/) (2023)
- [TTT3R: 3D Reconstruction as Test-Time Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.26645/) (2025)
- [TartanVO: A Generalizable Learning-based VO](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.00359/) (2020)
- [SGS-SLAM: Semantic Gaussian Splatting For Neural Dense SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.03246/) (2024)
- [Orbeez-SLAM: A Real-time Monocular Visual SLAM with ORB Features and NeRF-realized Mapping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.13274/) (2022)
- [Splat-SLAM: Globally Optimized RGB-only SLAM with 3D Gaussians](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.16544/) (2024)
- [SNI-SLAM: Semantic Neural Implicit SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.11016/) (2023)
- [RGBD GS-ICP SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.12550/) (2024)
- [CG-SLAM: Efficient Dense RGB-D SLAM in a Consistent Uncertainty-aware 3D Gaussian Field](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.16095/) (2024)
- [LoopSplat: Loop Closure by Registering 3D Gaussian Splats](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.10154/) (2024)
- [WildGS-SLAM: Monocular Gaussian Splatting SLAM in Dynamic Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.03886/) (2025)
- [FAST-LIVO2: Fast, Direct LiDAR-Inertial-Visual Odometry](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.14035/) (2024)
- [Direct Sparse Visual-Inertial Odometry using Dynamic Marginalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.05625/) (2018)
- [HI-SLAM: Monocular Real-time Dense Mapping with Hybrid Implicit Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.04787/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [Towards Next-Generation SLAM: A Survey on 3DGS-SLAM Focusing on Performance, Robustness, and Future Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.04251/) (2026)
- [Spectral GS-SLAM: Observability-Aware, Degeneracy-Robust Tracking for Real-Time 3D Gaussian Splatting SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.21258/) (2026)
- [GLAM-SLAM: Real-time Gaussian Large-scale Mapping via Flow Densification and Spatial Decomposition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.21416/) (2026)
- [DynActiveGS: Active Gaussian Splatting for Dynamic Scene Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.01178/) (2026)
- [VI3: Grounding Pretrained 3D Foundation Models with Inertial Cues](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.03824/) (2026)
- [CLoSeR: Closing the Loop for Long-Context Streaming Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.01927/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We present VIGS-SLAM, a visual-inertial 3D Gaussian Splatting SLAM system that achieves robust real-time tracking and high-fidelity reconstruction. Although recent 3DGS-based SLAM methods achieve dense and photorealistic mapping, their purely visual design degrades under challenging conditions such as motion blur, low texture, and exposure variations. Our method tightly couples visual and inertial cues within a unified optimization framework, jointly optimizing camera poses, depths, and IMU states. It features robust IMU initialization, time-varying bias modeling, and loop closure with consistent Gaussian updates. Experiments on five challenging datasets demonstrate our superiority over state-of-the-art methods. Project page: https://vigs-slam.github.io