UW-3DGS: Underwater 3D Reconstruction with Physics-Aware Gaussian Splatting

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Xing, Wenpeng, Chen, Jie, Yang, Zaifeng, Lin, Changting, Dong, Jianfeng, Chen, Chaochao, Zhou, Xun, Han, Meng
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Xing, Wenpeng
Chen, Jie
Yang, Zaifeng
Lin, Changting
Dong, Jianfeng
Chen, Chaochao
Zhou, Xun
Han, Meng
author_facet Xing, Wenpeng
Chen, Jie
Yang, Zaifeng
Lin, Changting
Dong, Jianfeng
Chen, Chaochao
Zhou, Xun
Han, Meng
contents Underwater 3D scene reconstruction faces severe challenges from light absorption, scattering, and turbidity, which degrade geometry and color fidelity in traditional methods like Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF). While NeRF extensions such as SeaThru-NeRF incorporate physics-based models, their MLP reliance limits efficiency and spatial resolution in hazy environments. We introduce UW-3DGS, a novel framework adapting 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) for robust underwater reconstruction. Key innovations include: (1) a plug-and-play learnable underwater image formation module using voxel-based regression for spatially varying attenuation and backscatter; and (2) a Physics-Aware Uncertainty Pruning (PAUP) branch that adaptively removes noisy floating Gaussians via uncertainty scoring, ensuring artifact-free geometry. The pipeline operates in training and rendering stages. During training, noisy Gaussians are optimized end-to-end with underwater parameters, guided by PAUP pruning and scattering modeling. In rendering, refined Gaussians produce clean Unattenuated Radiance Images (URIs) free from media effects, while learned physics enable realistic Underwater Images (UWIs) with accurate light transport. Experiments on SeaThru-NeRF and UWBundle datasets show superior performance, achieving PSNR of 27.604, SSIM of 0.868, and LPIPS of 0.104 on SeaThru-NeRF, with ~65% reduction in floating artifacts.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_06169
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle UW-3DGS: Underwater 3D Reconstruction with Physics-Aware Gaussian Splatting
Xing, Wenpeng
Chen, Jie
Yang, Zaifeng
Lin, Changting
Dong, Jianfeng
Chen, Chaochao
Zhou, Xun
Han, Meng
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Underwater 3D scene reconstruction faces severe challenges from light absorption, scattering, and turbidity, which degrade geometry and color fidelity in traditional methods like Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF). While NeRF extensions such as SeaThru-NeRF incorporate physics-based models, their MLP reliance limits efficiency and spatial resolution in hazy environments. We introduce UW-3DGS, a novel framework adapting 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) for robust underwater reconstruction. Key innovations include: (1) a plug-and-play learnable underwater image formation module using voxel-based regression for spatially varying attenuation and backscatter; and (2) a Physics-Aware Uncertainty Pruning (PAUP) branch that adaptively removes noisy floating Gaussians via uncertainty scoring, ensuring artifact-free geometry. The pipeline operates in training and rendering stages. During training, noisy Gaussians are optimized end-to-end with underwater parameters, guided by PAUP pruning and scattering modeling. In rendering, refined Gaussians produce clean Unattenuated Radiance Images (URIs) free from media effects, while learned physics enable realistic Underwater Images (UWIs) with accurate light transport. Experiments on SeaThru-NeRF and UWBundle datasets show superior performance, achieving PSNR of 27.604, SSIM of 0.868, and LPIPS of 0.104 on SeaThru-NeRF, with ~65% reduction in floating artifacts.
title UW-3DGS: Underwater 3D Reconstruction with Physics-Aware Gaussian Splatting
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.06169