# KFS4LAM: Adaptive KeyFrame Selection with Structure-Aware Mapping for Endoscopic Gaussian Splatting SLAM

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.22505 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.22505/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 19 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Endoscopic and medical 3D reconstruction, one of 15 directions in 3D reconstruction and neural rendering.
- Builds on 18 of its 25 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 15 Oct 2026.

## Placed in

- 3D reconstruction and neural rendering / [Endoscopic and medical 3D reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/recon3d/endoscopic-and-medical-3d-reconstruction/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 18 of 18)

- [ORB-SLAM3: An Accurate Open-Source Library for Visual, Visual-Inertial and Multi-Map SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.11898/) (2020)
- [NICE-SLAM: Neural Implicit Scalable Encoding for SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.12130/) (2021)
- [Gaussian Splatting SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.06741/) (2023)
- [SplaTAM: Splat, Track & Map 3D Gaussians for Dense RGB-D SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02126/) (2023)
- [Gaussian-SLAM: Photo-realistic Dense SLAM with Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.10070/) (2023)
- [Colonoscopy 3D Video Dataset with Paired Depth from 2D-3D Registration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.08903/) (2022)
- [EndoMapper dataset of complete calibrated endoscopy procedures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.14240/) (2022)
- [EndoGS: Deformable Endoscopic Tissues Reconstruction with Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.11535/) (2024)
- [EndoGSLAM: Real-Time Dense Reconstruction and Tracking in Endoscopic Surgeries using Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.15124/) (2024)
- [Gaussian Pancakes: Geometrically-Regularized 3D Gaussian Splatting for Realistic Endoscopic Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.06128/) (2024)
- [C3VDv2 -- Colonoscopy 3D video dataset with enhanced realism](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.24074/) (2025)
- [Reinforcement Learning Meets Visual Odometry](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.15626/) (2024)
- [Advancing Dense Endoscopic Reconstruction with Gaussian Splatting-driven Surface Normal-aware Tracking and Mapping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.19319/) (2025)
- [SegCol Challenge: Semantic Segmentation for Tools and Fold Edges in Colonoscopy data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.16078/) (2024)
- [NFL-BA: Near-Field Light Bundle Adjustment for SLAM in Dynamic Lighting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.13176/) (2024)
- [Estimating the coverage in 3d reconstructions of the colon from colonoscopy videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.10459/) (2022)
- [Self-Supervised Contrastive Embedding Adaptation for Endoscopic Image Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.10379/) (2025)
- [Multi-Modal Monocular Endoscopic Depth and Pose Estimation with Edge-Guided Self-Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.17785/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Gaussian-splatting Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) augments conventional SLAM with a dense, renderable 3D scene representation, enabling high-quality reconstruction and novel-view synthesis. However, its localization, reconstruction, and rendering performance depends strongly on which observations are retained for mapping. Existing systems commonly rely on fixed temporal intervals or simple pose- and overlap-based criteria for keyframe selection. In colonoscopy, non-uniform camera motion, repetitive anatomy, specularities, and visual artifacts can make these criteria unreliable, leading to either redundant keyframes or missed informative viewpoints. We present KFS4LAM (KeyFrame Selection with Structure-aware mapping for endoscopic Gaussian Splatting SLAM), which couples motion-guided adaptive keyframe selection with structurally supervised mapping and restricted temporal deformation. Accumulated motion guides adaptive keyframe selection, with complementary cues suppressing redundant or unreliable candidates. Density-aware mapping with anatomical contour supervision (colon folds) emphasizes structurally informative regions, while restricted temporal deformation accommodates local tissue dynamics without unconstrained geometric drift. We evaluate KFS4LAM against Gaussian-SLAM baselines on C3VD and C3VD-v2, together with cross-backbone and component ablations. KFS4LAM achieves strong overall performance across trajectory, rendering, and depth metrics, with pronounced gains on more challenging C3VD-v2 dataset. In the matched comparison with SplaTAM on C3VD-v2, it reduces rotational relative pose error by 20.3% and depth RMSE by 38.4%, while improving PSNR by 0.78 dB. Cross-backbone experiments further show that the framework is not tied to a single underlying SLAM architecture. Code and visualization results are available at https://xinweiju.github.io/KFSLAM/.