# GAINS: Gaussian-based Inverse Rendering from Sparse Multi-View Captures

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09925 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.09925/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in 3D, point cloud and scene generation, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 40 of its 51 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 10 Dec 2025.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [3D, point cloud and scene generation](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/3d-point-cloud-and-scene-generation/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 40)

- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [DINOv2: Learning Robust Visual Features without Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.07193/) (2023)
- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [SAM 2: Segment Anything in Images and Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.00714/) (2024)
- [Zero-1-to-3: Zero-shot One Image to 3D Object](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11328/) (2023)
- [2D Gaussian Splatting for Geometrically Accurate Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17888/) (2024)
- [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)
- [FSGS: Real-Time Few-shot View Synthesis using Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00451/) (2023)
- [GaussianDreamer: Fast Generation from Text to 3D Gaussians by Bridging 2D and 3D Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.08529/) (2023)
- [GaussianShader: 3D Gaussian Splatting with Shading Functions for Reflective Surfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17977/) (2023)
- [SparseNeRF: Distilling Depth Ranking for Few-shot Novel View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.16196/) (2023)
- [GS-IR: 3D Gaussian Splatting for Inverse Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16473/) (2023)
- [Inverse Rendering for Complex Indoor Scenes: Shape, Spatially-Varying Lighting and SVBRDF from a Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.02722/) (2019)
- [Modeling Indirect Illumination for Inverse Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.06837/) (2022)
- [TensoIR: Tensorial Inverse Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.12461/) (2023)
- [Shape, Light, and Material Decomposition from Images using Monte Carlo Rendering and Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.03380/) (2022)
- [NeRO: Neural Geometry and BRDF Reconstruction of Reflective Objects from Multiview Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.17398/) (2023)
- [RGBleftrightarrowX: Image decomposition and synthesis using material- and lighting-aware diffusion models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.00666/) (2024)
- [SparseGS: Sparse View Synthesis using 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00206/) (2023)
- [SfSNet: Learning Shape, Reflectance and Illuminance of Faces in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.01261/) (2017)
- [Neural Inverse Rendering of an Indoor Scene from a Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.02453/) (2019)
- [InverseRenderNet: Learning single image inverse rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.12328/) (2018)
- [GIR: 3D Gaussian Inverse Rendering for Relightable Scene Factorization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.05133/) (2023)
- [NeILF++: Inter-Reflectable Light Fields for Geometry and Material Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.17147/) (2023)
- [GaussianObject: High-Quality 3D Object Reconstruction from Four Views with Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.10259/) (2024)
- [IRGS: Inter-Reflective Gaussian Splatting with 2D Gaussian Ray Tracing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.15867/) (2024)
- [Neural-PBIR Reconstruction of Shape, Material, and Illumination](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.13445/) (2023)
- [Relighting Neural Radiance Fields with Shadow and Highlight Hints](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.13404/) (2023)
- [GI-GS: Global Illumination Decomposition on Gaussian Splatting for Inverse Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.02619/) (2024)

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

- [TRON: Tracing Rays to Orchestrate a Neural Renderer for 3D Gaussian Reconstructions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.11314/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Recent advances in Gaussian Splatting-based inverse rendering extend Gaussian primitives with shading parameters and physically grounded light transport, enabling high-quality material recovery from dense multi-view captures. However, the accuracy of these methods degrades under sparse-view settings, where limited observations lead to severe ambiguity between geometry, reflectance, and lighting. We introduce GAINS (Gaussian-based Inverse rendering from Sparse multi-view captures), a two-stage inverse rendering framework that leverages foundation models as priors to stabilize geometry and material estimation. The core technical contribution of this paper is an inverse rendering framework that unifies foundation model priors with physically-based representations in an optimization scheme. GAINS first refines geometry using monocular depth, normal, and diffusion priors, and then employs segmentation, intrinsic image decomposition (IID), and diffusion priors to regularize material recovery. Extensive experiments on synthetic and real-world datasets show that GAINS significantly improves material parameter accuracy, relighting quality, and novel-view synthesis compared to state-of-the-art Gaussian-based inverse rendering methods. While GAINS outperforms and remains competitive across a wide range of objects captured with 4 to 32 cameras, the improvement is particularly pronounced under sparse-view settings, where ambiguity is high and learning-based priors become especially beneficial. Project page: https://patrickbail.github.io/gains/