In plain words: Instead of splitting a huge scene into chunks, it keeps all the 3D blobs in computer memory and streams in only what the current view needs, at the right detail level. This trains and renders city-scale scenes on one consumer graphics card, with no seams.
Abstract · A LoD of Gaussians: Unified Training and Rendering for Ultra-Large Scale Reconstruction with External Memory
Gaussian Splatting has emerged as a high-performance technique for novel view synthesis, enabling real-time rendering and high-quality reconstruction of small scenes. However, scaling to larger environments has so far relied on partitioning the scene into chunks -- a strategy that introduces artifacts at chunk boundaries, complicates training across varying scales, and is poorly suited to unstructured scenarios such as city-scale flyovers combined with street-level views. Moreover, rendering remains fundamentally limited by GPU memory, as all visible chunks must reside in VRAM simultaneously. We introduce A LoD of Gaussians, a framework for training and rendering ultra-large-scale Gaussian scenes on a single consumer-grade GPU -- without partitioning. Our method stores the full scene out-of-core (e.g., in CPU memory) and trains a Level-of-Detail (LoD) representation directly, dynamically streaming only the relevant Gaussians. A hybrid data structure combining Gaussian hierarchies with Sequential Point Trees enables efficient, view-dependent LoD selection, while a lightweight caching and view scheduling system exploits temporal coherence to support real-time streaming and rendering. Together, these innovations enable seamless multi-scale reconstruction and interactive visualization of complex scenes -- from broad aerial views to fine-grained ground-level details.
Felix Windisch, Thomas Köhler, Lukas Radl, Mattia D'Urso, Michael Steiner, Dieter Schmalstieg, Markus Steinberger
arXiv:2507.01110 · cs.GR, cs.LG · submitted Jul 1, 2025 · updated Feb 17, 2026
abstract · pdf · html