AstroSplat: Physics-Based Gaussian Splatting for Rendering and Reconstruction of Small Celestial Bodies
Image-based surface reconstruction and characterization are crucial for missions to small celestial bodies (e.g., asteroids), as it informs mission planning, navigation, and scientific analysis. Recent advances in Gaussian splatting enable high-fidelity neural scene representations but typically rely on a spherical harmonic intensity parameterization that is strictly appearance-based and does not explicitly model material properties or light-surface interactions. We introduce AstroSplat, a physics-based Gaussian splatting framework that integrates planetary reflectance models to improve the autonomous reconstruction and photometric characterization of small-body surfaces from in-situ imag...
| Authors | Jennifer Nolan, Travis Driver, John Christian |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.CV |
| Published | 12 March 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 11 May 2026 |
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