From Fields to Splats: A Cross-Domain Survey of Real-Time Neural Scene Representations

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Ahmad, Javed, Gao, Penggang, Delehelle, Donatien, Canio, Mennuti, Deshpande, Nikhil, Ortiz, Jesús, Caldwell, Darwin G., Tefera, Yonas Teodros
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Ahmad, Javed
Gao, Penggang
Delehelle, Donatien
Canio, Mennuti
Deshpande, Nikhil
Ortiz, Jesús
Caldwell, Darwin G.
Tefera, Yonas Teodros
author_facet Ahmad, Javed
Gao, Penggang
Delehelle, Donatien
Canio, Mennuti
Deshpande, Nikhil
Ortiz, Jesús
Caldwell, Darwin G.
Tefera, Yonas Teodros
contents Neural scene representations such as Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) and 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) have transformed how 3D environments are modeled, rendered, and interpreted. NeRF introduced view-consistent photorealism via volumetric rendering; 3DGS has rapidly emerged as an explicit, efficient alternative that supports high-quality rendering, faster optimization, and integration into hybrid pipelines for enhanced photorealism and task-driven scene understanding. This survey examines how 3DGS is being adopted across SLAM, telepresence and teleoperation, robotic manipulation, and 3D content generation. Despite their differences, these domains share common goals: photorealistic rendering, meaningful 3D structure, and accurate downstream tasks. We organize the review around unified research questions that explain why 3DGS is increasingly displacing NeRF-based approaches: What technical advantages drive its adoption? How does it adapt to different input modalities and domain-specific constraints? What limitations remain? By systematically comparing domain-specific pipelines, we show that 3DGS balances photorealism, geometric fidelity, and computational efficiency. The survey offers a roadmap for leveraging neural rendering not only for image synthesis but also for perception, interaction, and content creation across real and virtual environments.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_23555
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle From Fields to Splats: A Cross-Domain Survey of Real-Time Neural Scene Representations
Ahmad, Javed
Gao, Penggang
Delehelle, Donatien
Canio, Mennuti
Deshpande, Nikhil
Ortiz, Jesús
Caldwell, Darwin G.
Tefera, Yonas Teodros
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Neural scene representations such as Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) and 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) have transformed how 3D environments are modeled, rendered, and interpreted. NeRF introduced view-consistent photorealism via volumetric rendering; 3DGS has rapidly emerged as an explicit, efficient alternative that supports high-quality rendering, faster optimization, and integration into hybrid pipelines for enhanced photorealism and task-driven scene understanding. This survey examines how 3DGS is being adopted across SLAM, telepresence and teleoperation, robotic manipulation, and 3D content generation. Despite their differences, these domains share common goals: photorealistic rendering, meaningful 3D structure, and accurate downstream tasks. We organize the review around unified research questions that explain why 3DGS is increasingly displacing NeRF-based approaches: What technical advantages drive its adoption? How does it adapt to different input modalities and domain-specific constraints? What limitations remain? By systematically comparing domain-specific pipelines, we show that 3DGS balances photorealism, geometric fidelity, and computational efficiency. The survey offers a roadmap for leveraging neural rendering not only for image synthesis but also for perception, interaction, and content creation across real and virtual environments.
title From Fields to Splats: A Cross-Domain Survey of Real-Time Neural Scene Representations
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.23555