From Volume Rendering to 3D Gaussian Splatting: Theory and Applications

• Vitor Pereira Matias USP
• Daniel Perazzo IMPA
• Vinicius Silva PUC-Rio
• Alberto Raposo PUC-Rio
• Luiz Velho IMPA
• Afonso Paiva USP
• Tiago Novello IMPA

Resumo

The problem of 3D reconstruction from posed images is undergoing a fundamental transformation, driven by continuous advances in 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS). By modeling scenes explicitly as collections of 3D Gaussians, 3DGS enables efficient rasterization through volumetric splatting, offering thus a seamless integration with common graphics pipelines. Despite its real-time rendering capabilities for novel view synthesis, 3DGS suffers from a high memory footprint, the tendency to bake lighting effects directly into its representation, and limited support for secondary-ray effects. This tutorial provides a concise yet comprehensive overview of the 3DGS pipeline, starting from its splatting formulation and then exploring the main efforts in addressing its limitations. Finally, we survey a range of applications that leverage 3DGS for surface reconstruction, avatar modeling, animation, and content generation—highlighting its efficient rendering and suitability for feed-forward pipelines.

Palavras-chave: Surveys, Surface reconstruction, Solid modeling, Three-dimensional displays, Pipelines, Lighting, Tutorials, Rendering (computer graphics), Real-time systems, Image reconstruction, Gaussian Splatting, Volume Rendering, 3D Reconstruction