Does Gaussian Splatting need SFM Initialization?
Authors: name: Yalda Foroutan, name: Daniel Rebain, name: Kwang Moo Yi, name: Andrea Tagliasacchi

3D Gaussian Splatting has recently been embraced as a versatile and effective
method for scene reconstruction and novel view synthesis, owing to its
high-quality results and compatibility with hardware rasterization. Despite its
advantages, Gaussian Splatting's reliance on high-quality point cloud
initialization by Structure-from-Motion (SFM) algorithms is a significant
limitation to be overcome. To this end, we investigate various initialization
strategies for Gaussian Splatting and delve into how volumetric reconstructions
from Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) can be utilized to bypass the dependency on
SFM data. Our findings demonstrate that random initialization can perform much
better if carefully designed and that by employing a combination of improved
initialization strategies and structure distillation from low-cost NeRF models,
it is possible to achieve equivalent results, or at times even superior, to
those obtained from SFM initialization.