Spark3R: Asymmetric Token Reduction Makes Fast Feed-Forward 3D Reconstruction
On the map: Efficient LLM inference and serving → Token pruning and merging for ViTs
Abstract (arXiv)
Feed-forward 3D reconstruction models based on Vision Transformers can directly estimate scene geometry and camera poses from a small set of input images, but scaling them to video inputs with hundreds or thousands of frames remains challenging due to the quadratic cost of global attention layers. Recent token-merging methods accelerate these models by compressing the token sequence within the global attention layers, but they apply a uniform reduction to query tokens and key-value tokens, ignoring their functionally distinct roles in 3D reconstruction. In this work, we identify a key property of feed-forward 3D reconstruction models: query tokens encode view-specific geometric requests and are sensitive to compression, while key-value tokens represent shared scene context and tolerate aggressive compression. Guided by this insight, we propose Spark3R, a training-free acceleration framework that decouples the compression of query tokens and key-value tokens by assigning distinct reduction factors, with intra-group token merging applied to query tokens and lightweight token pruning to key-value tokens. Additionally, Spark3R adaptively adjusts the key-value reduction factor across layers, further improving the quality-efficiency trade-off. As a plug-and-play framework requiring no retraining, Spark3R integrates directly into multiple pretrained feed-forward 3D reconstruction models, including VGGT, π3, Depth-Anything-3, and VGGT-Omega, and achieves up to 28× speedup on 1,000-frame inputs while maintaining competitive reconstruction quality.
Key facts. Cited by 1 paper in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Token pruning and merging for ViTs, one of 12 directions in Efficient LLM inference and serving. Builds on 33 of its 48 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 7 May 2026.
Builds on
33 of 48 references.
Closest ancestors · 3
Same direction, newest first
- 2025LiteVGGT: Boosting Vanilla VGGT via Geometry-aware Cached Token Merging4 Dec
- 2025FastVGGT: Training-Free Acceleration of Visual Geometry Transformer2 Sep
- 2022Token Merging: Your ViT But Faster17 Oct
Other references · 30
- 2017Attention Is All You Needcited by 59,932
- 2023DINOv2: Learning Robust Visual Features without Supervisioncited by 7,764
- 20233D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Renderingcited by 6,141
- 2022FlashAttention: Fast and Memory-Efficient Exact Attention with IO-Awarenesscited by 3,611
- 2017ScanNet: Richly-annotated 3D Reconstructions of Indoor Scenescited by 3,088
- 2021Vision Transformers for Dense Predictioncited by 1,789
- 2023DUSt3R: Geometric 3D Vision Made Easycited by 1,526
- 2025VGGT: Visual Geometry Grounded Transformercited by 1,475
- 2024Grounding Image Matching in 3D with MASt3Rcited by 960
- 2018MVSNet: Depth Inference for Unstructured Multi-view Stereocited by 780
- 2023Scaffold-GS: Structured 3D Gaussians for View-Adaptive Renderingcited by 684
- 2025Depth Anything 3: Recovering the Visual Space from Any Viewscited by 626
18 more
- 2025Continuous 3D Perception Model with Persistent Statecited by 527
- 2021Neural RGB-D Surface Reconstructioncited by 312
- 2023Token Merging for Fast Stable Diffusioncited by 220
- 2019ReFusion: 3D Reconstruction in Dynamic Environments for RGB-D Cameras Exploiting Residualscited by 180
- 2025Streaming 4D Visual Geometry Transformercited by 147
- 2025TTT3R: 3D Reconstruction as Test-Time Trainingcited by 122
- 2025Test-Time Training Done Rightcited by 121
- 2025VGGT-Long: Chunk it, Loop it, Align it -- Pushing VGGT's Limits on Kilometer-scale Long RGB Sequencescited by 107
- 2025Point3R: Streaming 3D Reconstruction with Explicit Spatial Pointer Memorycited by 82
- 2026InfiniteVGGT: Visual Geometry Grounded Transformer for Endless Streamscited by 51
- 2026Fast KV Compaction via Attention Matchingcited by 28
- 2026ZipMap: Linear-Time Stateful 3D Reconstruction via Test-Time Trainingcited by 23
- 20253UR-LLM: An End-to-End Multimodal Large Language Model for 3D Scene Understandingcited by 16
- 2026VGG-T3: Offline Feed-Forward 3D Reconstruction at Scalecited by 14
- 2025ReCon-GS: Continuum-Preserved Gaussian Streaming for Fast and Compact Reconstruction of Dynamic Scenescited by 12
- 2026Robo3R: Enhancing Robotic Manipulation with Accurate Feed-Forward 3D Reconstructioncited by 8
- 2023Language-Assisted 3D Scene Understandingcited by 6
- 2025LASER: Layer-wise Scale Alignment for Training-Free Streaming 4D Reconstructioncited by 5
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2026: 1.
1 paper.
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- 2026Speed3R: Sparse Feed-forward 3D Reconstruction Models
- 2026SceneTok: A Compressed, Diffusable Token Space for 3D Scenes
- 2026XStreamVGGT: Extremely Memory-Efficient Streaming Vision Geometry Grounded Transformer with KV Cache Compression
- 2026XStreamVGGT: Extremely Memory-Efficient Streaming Vision Geometry Grounded Transformer with KV Cache Compression
- 2025Evict3R: Training-Free Token Eviction for Memory-Bounded Streaming Visual Geometry Transformers
- 2025HCC-3D: Hierarchical Compensatory Compression for 98% 3D Token Reduction in Vision-Language Models
- 2026GHOST: Geometry-Hierarchical Online Streaming Token Eviction for Efficient 3D Reconstruction
- 2026Revisiting Token Compression for Accelerating ViT-based Sparse Multi-View 3D Object Detectors