From Flight to Insight: Semantic 3D Reconstruction for Aerial Inspection via Gaussian Splatting and Language-Guided Segmentation

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zaouali, Mahmoud Chick, Charter, Todd, Najjaran, Homayoun
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Zaouali, Mahmoud Chick
Charter, Todd
Najjaran, Homayoun
author_facet Zaouali, Mahmoud Chick
Charter, Todd
Najjaran, Homayoun
contents High-fidelity 3D reconstruction is critical for aerial inspection tasks such as infrastructure monitoring, structural assessment, and environmental surveying. While traditional photogrammetry techniques enable geometric modeling, they lack semantic interpretability, limiting their effectiveness for automated inspection workflows. Recent advances in neural rendering and 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) offer efficient, photorealistic reconstructions but similarly lack scene-level understanding. In this work, we present a UAV-based pipeline that extends Feature-3DGS for language-guided 3D segmentation. We leverage LSeg-based feature fields with CLIP embeddings to generate heatmaps in response to language prompts. These are thresholded to produce rough segmentations, and the highest-scoring point is then used as a prompt to SAM or SAM2 for refined 2D segmentation on novel view renderings. Our results highlight the strengths and limitations of various feature field backbones (CLIP-LSeg, SAM, SAM2) in capturing meaningful structure in large-scale outdoor environments. We demonstrate that this hybrid approach enables flexible, language-driven interaction with photorealistic 3D reconstructions, opening new possibilities for semantic aerial inspection and scene understanding.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_17402
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle From Flight to Insight: Semantic 3D Reconstruction for Aerial Inspection via Gaussian Splatting and Language-Guided Segmentation
Zaouali, Mahmoud Chick
Charter, Todd
Najjaran, Homayoun
Graphics
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Image and Video Processing
High-fidelity 3D reconstruction is critical for aerial inspection tasks such as infrastructure monitoring, structural assessment, and environmental surveying. While traditional photogrammetry techniques enable geometric modeling, they lack semantic interpretability, limiting their effectiveness for automated inspection workflows. Recent advances in neural rendering and 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) offer efficient, photorealistic reconstructions but similarly lack scene-level understanding. In this work, we present a UAV-based pipeline that extends Feature-3DGS for language-guided 3D segmentation. We leverage LSeg-based feature fields with CLIP embeddings to generate heatmaps in response to language prompts. These are thresholded to produce rough segmentations, and the highest-scoring point is then used as a prompt to SAM or SAM2 for refined 2D segmentation on novel view renderings. Our results highlight the strengths and limitations of various feature field backbones (CLIP-LSeg, SAM, SAM2) in capturing meaningful structure in large-scale outdoor environments. We demonstrate that this hybrid approach enables flexible, language-driven interaction with photorealistic 3D reconstructions, opening new possibilities for semantic aerial inspection and scene understanding.
title From Flight to Insight: Semantic 3D Reconstruction for Aerial Inspection via Gaussian Splatting and Language-Guided Segmentation
topic Graphics
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Image and Video Processing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.17402