# Practical High-Fidelity Novel-View Synthesis of Mounted Lepidoptera

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.31679 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.31679/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 16 of its 35 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 30 Jun 2026.

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

- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [Instant Neural Graphics Primitives with a Multiresolution Hash Encoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.05989/) (2022)
- [Plenoxels: Radiance Fields without Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.05131/) (2021)
- [SuperGlue: Learning Feature Matching with Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.11763/) (2019)
- [2D Gaussian Splatting for Geometrically Accurate Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17888/) (2024)
- [From Coarse to Fine: Robust Hierarchical Localization at Large Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.03506/) (2018)
- [gsplat: An Open-Source Library for Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.06765/) (2024)
- [Deblur-NeRF: Neural Radiance Fields from Blurry Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.14292/) (2021)
- [NeRS: Neural Reflectance Surfaces for Sparse-view 3D Reconstruction in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.07604/) (2021)
- [MirrorGaussian: Reflecting 3D Gaussians for Reconstructing Mirror Reflections](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.11921/) (2024)
- [Mirror-3DGS: Incorporating Mirror Reflections into 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.01168/) (2024)
- [DOF-GS:Adjustable Depth-of-Field 3D Gaussian Splatting for Post-Capture Refocusing, Defocus Rendering and Blur Removal](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.17351/) (2024)
- [DoF-Gaussian: Controllable Depth-of-Field for 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.00746/) (2025)
- [Capturing natural-colour 3D models of insects for species discovery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.02039/) (2017)
- [Perspective-consistent multifocus multiview 3D reconstruction of small objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.03005/) (2019)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Mounted butterflies are among the most striking objects in natural history collections. However, their beauty is notoriously hard to digitize in 3D: they are small and fragile, with microscopic hairs and vein structures. Capturing them in sufficient detail, therefore, requires a macro lens, which has a very limited Depth of Field (DoF). Moreover, a camera body cannot be maneuvered beneath a pinned specimen to photograph its ventral surface. We introduce an end-to-end pipeline that resolves these challenges, turning such specimens into photorealistic 3D models viewable from every direction. It combines three ingredients: handheld focus stacking for all-in-focus macro capture without a tripod, a non-contact first-surface mirror system that exposes the ventral surface without touching the specimen, and a segmentation-free, mirror-aware 3D Gaussian Splatting extension. We validate the reconstructions and design decisions on nine diverse specimens.