# Urban Neural Surface Reconstruction from Constrained Sparse Aerial Imagery with 3D SAR Fusion

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.22045 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.22045/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 16 of its 38 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 29 Jan 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 16 of 16)

- [NeuS: Learning Neural Implicit Surfaces by Volume Rendering for Multi-view Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.10689/) (2021)
- [Volume Rendering of Neural Implicit Surfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.12052/) (2021)
- [MonoSDF: Exploring Monocular Geometric Cues for Neural Implicit Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.00665/) (2022)
- [Neuralangelo: High-Fidelity Neural Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.03092/) (2023)
- [Mega-NeRF: Scalable Construction of Large-Scale NeRFs for Virtual Fly-Throughs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10703/) (2021)
- [Neural RGB-D Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.04532/) (2021)
- [Dense Depth Priors for Neural Radiance Fields from Sparse Input Views](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.03288/) (2021)
- [Urban Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.14643/) (2021)
- [Geo-Neus: Geometry-Consistent Neural Implicit Surfaces Learning for Multi-view Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.15848/) (2022)
- [NeRF: Neural Radiance Field in 3D Vision: A Comprehensive Review (Updated Post-Gaussian Splatting)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.00379/) (2022)
- [StreetSurf: Extending Multi-view Implicit Surface Reconstruction to Street Views](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.04988/) (2023)
- [3DGSR: Implicit Surface Reconstruction with 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.00409/) (2024)
- [NeuSurf: On-Surface Priors for Neural Surface Reconstruction from Sparse Input Views](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.13977/) (2023)
- [Learning-based Multi-View Stereo: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.15235/) (2024)
- [SimpliCity: Reconstructing Buildings with Simple Regularized 3D Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.08104/) (2024)
- [Aerial-NeRF: Adaptive Spatial Partitioning and Sampling for Large-Scale Aerial Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.06214/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Neural surface reconstruction (NSR) has recently shown strong potential for urban 3D reconstruction from multi-view aerial imagery. However, existing NSR methods often suffer from geometric ambiguity and instability, particularly under sparse-view conditions. This issue is critical in large-scale urban remote sensing, where aerial image acquisition is limited by flight paths, terrain, and cost. To address this challenge, we present the first urban NSR framework that fuses 3D synthetic aperture radar (SAR) point clouds with aerial imagery for high-fidelity reconstruction under constrained, sparse-view settings. 3D SAR can efficiently capture large-scale geometry even from a single side-looking flight path, providing robust priors that complement photometric cues from images. Our framework integrates radar-derived spatial constraints into an SDF-based NSR backbone, guiding structure-aware ray selection and adaptive sampling for stable and efficient optimization. We also construct the first benchmark dataset with co-registered 3D SAR point clouds and aerial imagery, facilitating systematic evaluation of cross-modal 3D reconstruction. Extensive experiments show that incorporating 3D SAR markedly enhances reconstruction accuracy, completeness, and robustness compared with single-modality baselines under highly sparse and oblique-view conditions, highlighting a viable route toward scalable high-fidelity urban reconstruction with advanced airborne and spaceborne optical-SAR sensing.