Papers for

mapping software developers

Papers whose findings have a practical use for this group, as judged from the abstract. Open a paper to read what it means in practice.

3D Gaussian splatting improves remote sensing from few images

Remote Sensing Sparse-View 3D Gaussian Splatting via Depth Image-Based Rendering

Abstract: Remote sensing novel view synthesis under sparse observations remains challenging due to insufficient geometric constraints and limited cross-view supervision. Existing Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) and 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) methods are prone to overfitting and face challenges of depth ambiguities, missing cross-view information, and insufficient constraints in under-observed regions. To address these challenges, we propose DIBR-GS, a neural Gaussian Splatting framework that exploits Depth Image-Based Rendering (DIBR) to generate pseudo views for cross-view consistency supervision. Specifically, reliable geometric initialization is constructed by aligning monocular depth priors with sparse SfM reconstruction, and cross-view appearance priors are incorporated into neural Gaussian representations to enhance appearance modeling under sparse observations. Furthermore, we introduce a progressive DIBR-based pseudo-view supervision strategy to provide additional geometric and appearance constraints, enabling more complete reconstruction of weakly observed regions. In addition, a height-constrained anchor growth strategy is designed to suppress unreasonable Gaussian expansion. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed method achieves superior performance over existing approaches when training with only 3 input views. Compared with the previous best-performing method, it improves PSNR by 6.83 dB, with relative gains of 14\% in SSIM and 60\% in LPIPS, while maintaining competitive computational efficiency. Our code is available at https://github.com/kanehub/DIBR-GS

Mon 28 SeptComputer Vision and Pattern Recognition
The gist
Creating 3D views of a landscape or object from only a few photos is hard because there isn’t enough information to accurately guess the shapes and colors from all angles. The authors developed a new method that uses depth-based rendering to create extra virtual views, helping the system learn better 3D shapes and appearances. They also made sure the 3D parts don’t grow unrealistically tall, leading to more complete and accurate 3D models. Their method works well even when trained on just three images, outperforming previous techniques.
Open → 2609.35612v1

Super-resolution improves digital elevation models using satellite images

Guided Super-Resolution of Digital Elevation Models with Diffusion-Based Image Generators

Abstract: High-resolution digital surface models (DSMs) play an important role in urban analysis, 3D building reconstruction, and infrastructure monitoring, yet their availability remains limited due to the high cost and complexity of data acquisition. In contrast, coarse DSMs from commercial satellite missions are widely accessible, and high-resolution optical imagery is increasingly available from aerial and satellite platforms. We address the resulting mismatch in spatial resolution and propose a DSM superresolution approach that enhances 5 m DSMs to 0.5 m resolution, using guidance from high-resolution spectral images. Our method employs denoising diffusion to transfer information that is visible only in the image, like crisp outlines and detailed roof structures, into the elevation maps. In this way, surface details are reconstructed more accurately than with conventional interpolation or filtering techniques. Experiments on several cities in Central Europe demonstrate that the proposed approach produces high-quality DSMs with improved structural detail and accurate surface geometry. Our results highlight the potential of guided super-resolution with foundational image priors as a means of reconstructing high-resolution surface models.

Thu 10 SeptComputer Vision and Pattern Recognition
The gist
High-resolution 3D maps of surfaces, like cities, are very useful but hard and expensive to make. The authors found a way to improve low-resolution elevation maps by using clear satellite photos to add details. They use a special AI method called denoising diffusion to bring sharp shapes and features from the images into the elevation data. This method works better than older techniques and can create better 3D models of cities.
Open → 2609.11886v1