# GaussianImage++: Boosted Image Representation and Compression with 2D Gaussian Splatting

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.19108 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.19108/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 21 of its 27 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 22 Dec 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 21 of 21)

- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [Implicit Neural Representations with Periodic Activation Functions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.09661/) (2020)
- [Variational image compression with a scale hyperprior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.01436/) (2018)
- [End-to-end Optimized Image Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.01704/) (2016)
- [Scaffold-GS: Structured 3D Gaussians for View-Adaptive Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00109/) (2023)
- [Learned Image Compression with Discretized Gaussian Mixture Likelihoods and Attention Modules](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.01568/) (2020)
- [LightGaussian: Unbounded 3D Gaussian Compression with 15x Reduction and 200+ FPS](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17245/) (2023)
- [ELIC: Efficient Learned Image Compression with Unevenly Grouped Space-Channel Contextual Adaptive Coding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.10886/) (2022)
- [CompressAI: a PyTorch library and evaluation platform for end-to-end compression research](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.03029/) (2020)
- [COIN: COmpression with Implicit Neural representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.03123/) (2021)
- [HAC: Hash-grid Assisted Context for 3D Gaussian Splatting Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.14530/) (2024)
- [LSQ+: Improving low-bit quantization through learnable offsets and better initialization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.09576/) (2020)
- [Revising Densification in Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.06109/) (2024)
- [ContextGS: Compact 3D Gaussian Splatting with Anchor Level Context Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.20721/) (2024)
- [C3: High-performance and low-complexity neural compression from a single image or video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02753/) (2023)
- [COOL-CHIC: Coordinate-based Low Complexity Hierarchical Image Codec](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.05458/) (2022)
- [EVC: Towards Real-Time Neural Image Compression with Mask Decay](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05071/) (2023)
- [Pixel to Gaussian: Ultra-Fast Continuous Super-Resolution with 2D Gaussian Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.06617/) (2025)
- [MEGA: Memory-Efficient 4D Gaussian Splatting for Dynamic Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.13613/) (2024)
- [Large Images are Gaussians: High-Quality Large Image Representation with Levels of 2D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.09039/) (2025)
- [MiraGe: Editable 2D Images using Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.01521/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [AIR: Amortized Image Reconstruction Framework for Self-Supervised Feed-Forward 2D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.20820/) (2026)
- [Locality-Aware Density Control for Efficient Gaussian-based Image Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.17896/) (2026)
- [PIC: Revisiting INR for Image Coding with Fast Encoding and Sub-Millisecond Decoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.09020/) (2026)
- [Rate-Distortion Adaptive Primitive Selection for Omnidirectional Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.34367/) (2026)
- [GS-Codec: A Gaussian-Splatting Bottleneck for Neural Audio Coding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.04651/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Implicit neural representations (INRs) have achieved remarkable success in image representation and compression, but they require substantial training time and memory. Meanwhile, recent 2D Gaussian Splatting (GS) methods (textite.g., GaussianImage) offer promising alternatives through efficient primitive-based rendering. However, these methods require excessive Gaussian primitives to maintain high visual fidelity. To exploit the potential of GS-based approaches, we present GaussianImage++, which utilizes limited Gaussian primitives to achieve impressive representation and compression performance. Firstly, we introduce a distortion-driven densification mechanism. It progressively allocates Gaussian primitives according to signal intensity. Secondly, we employ context-aware Gaussian filters for each primitive, which assist in the densification to optimize Gaussian primitives based on varying image content. Thirdly, we integrate attribute-separated learnable scalar quantizers and quantization-aware training, enabling efficient compression of primitive attributes. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our method. In particular, GaussianImage++ outperforms GaussianImage and INRs-based COIN in representation and compression performance while maintaining real-time decoding and low memory usage.