Title: GENIE: Gaussian Encoding for Neural Radiance Field Interactive Editing
Primary area: applications to computer vision, audio, language, and other modalities
Keywords: Gaussian Splatting, NeRF, 3D objects, physical simulations

Abstract: Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) and 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) have recently transformed 3D scene representation and rendering. NeRF achieves high-fidelity novel view synthesis by learning volumetric representations through neural networks, but its implicit encoding makes editing and physical interaction challenging. In contrast, 3DGS represents scenes as explicit collections of Gaussian primitives, enabling real-time rendering, faster training, and more intuitive manipulation. This explicit structure has made 3DGS particularly well-suited for interactive editing and integration with physics-based simulation. In this paper, we introduce GENIE (Gaussian Encoding for Neural Radiance Fields Interactive Editing), a hybrid model that combines the photorealistic rendering quality of NeRF with the editable and structured representation of 3DGS. Instead of using spherical harmonics for appearance modeling, we assign each Gaussian a trainable feature embedding. These embeddings are used to condition a NeRF network based on the 
 nearest Gaussians to each query point. To make this conditioning efficient, we introduce Ray-Traced Gaussian Proximity Search (RTGPS), a fast nearest Gaussian search based on a modified ray-tracing pipeline. We also integrate a multi-resolution hash grid to initialize and update Gaussian features. Together, these components enable real-time, locality-aware editing: as Gaussian primitives are repositioned or modified, their interpolated influence is immediately reflected in the rendered output. By combining the strengths of implicit and explicit representations, GENIE supports intuitive scene manipulation, dynamic interaction, and compatibility with physical simulation, bridging the gap between geometry-based editing and neural rendering.

TL;DR: his work introduces GENIE, a hybrid model that fuses NeRF’s photorealism with 3D Gaussian Splatting’s editability, enabling interactive 3D scene editing via Gaussian-based conditioning and fast nearest Gaussian search.