Refine Now, Query Fast: A Decoupled Refinement Paradigm for Implicit Neural Fields
Organizations: Department of Computer Science and Engineering Ohio State University Columbus, OH 43210, USA · Adobe San Francisco, CA, USA
Abstract
Implicit Neural Representations (INRs) have emerged as promising surrogates for large 3D scientific simulations due to their ability to continuously model spatial and conditional fields, yet they face a critical fidelity-speed dilemma: deep MLPs suffer from high inference cost, while efficient embedding-based models lack sufficient expressiveness. To resolve this, we propose the Decoupled Representation Refinement (DRR) architectural paradigm. DRR leverages a deep refiner network, alongside non-parametric transformations, in a one-time offline process to encode rich representations into a compact and efficient embedding structure. This approach decouples slow neural networks with high representational capacity from the fast inference path. We introduce DRR-Net, a simple network that validates this paradigm, and a novel data augmentation strategy, Variational Pairs (VP) for improving INRs under complex tasks like high-dimensional surrogate modeling. Experiments on several ensemble simulation datasets demonstrate that our approach achieves state-of-the-art fidelity, while being up to 27 faster at inference than high-fidelity baselines and remaining competitive with the fastest models. The DRR paradigm offers an effective strategy for building powerful and practical neural field surrogates and INRs in broader applications, with a minimal compromise between speed and quality.
Figures & tables
| Dataset | Structure | Variable | # Parameters | Resolution | # Training | # Testing |
| Nyx | 3D Cartesian Grid | Dark Matter Density | 3 | 100 | 30 | |
| MPAS-Ocean | Voronoi Mesh | Ocean Temperature | 4 | 11845146 vertices | 70 | 30 |
| Cloverleaf3D | 3D Cartesian Grid | Energy | 6 | 500 | 100 |
| Dataset | Model | Rel L2 | PSNR | SSIM | TFLOPs / pts | Inference Time (sec) | Training Time (hr) | # Params |
| Nyx | K-Planes | 1.96e-01 | 28.86 | 0.797 | 57.0 | 21.6s | 23.8h | 12.1M |
| FA-INR | 3.95e-02 | 42.79 | 0.975 | 2569.2 | 287.2s | 64.1h | 9.5M | |
| Explorable-INR | 4.64e-02 | 41.39 | 0.972 | 39.6 | 9.6s | 24.7h | 14.7M | |
| DRR-Net (ours) | 3.18e-02 | 44.69 | 0.986 | 57.2 | 10.7s | 24.0h | 8.9M | |
| MPAS-Ocean | K-Planes | 3.81e-01 | 15.45 | - | 60.0 | 16.9s | 6.6h | 13.5M |
| FA-INR | 5.58e-03 | 52.13 | - | 422.1 | 89.8s | 21.1h | 1.0M |
| Dataset | Model | Unseen Fields ( Rel L2 / PSNR / SSIM ) | Trained Fields ( Rel L2 / PSNR / SSIM ) | Inference Time (sec) | # Params |
| Nyx | K-Planes | 1.89e-01 / 29.18 / 0.709 | 2.91e-01 / 29.62 / 0.716 | 75.3s | 3.9M |
| FA-INR | 4.55e-02 / 41.57 / 0.971 | 7.29e-02 / 41.65 / 0.971 | 1245.1s | 9.5M | |
| Explorable-INR | 6.48e-02 / 38.50 / 0.959 | 8.44e-02 / 40.38 / 0.963 | 38.6s | 10.0M | |
| DRR-Net (ours) | 4.31e-02 / 42.04 / 0.975 | 7.07e-02 / 41.92 / 0.975 | 43.7s | 8.7M | |
| Cloverleaf3D | K-Planes | 4.47e-01 / 35.52 / 0.914 | 5.78e-01 / 36.04 / 0.919 | 81.5s | 3.1M |
| FA-INR | 1.07e-01 / 47.98 / 0.992 | 9.15e-02 / 52.06 / 0.996 | 327.8s | 1.0M |
| Model | Augment Method | Nyx | Cloverleaf3D | ||||
| Rel L2 | PSNR | SSIM | Rel L2 | PSNR | SSIM | ||
| K-Planes | None | 2.07e-01 | 28.41 | 0.783 | 8.57e-01 | 29.87 | 0.784 |
| VC | 1.98e-01 | 28.80 | 0.792 | 8.87e-01 | 29.57 | 0.775 | |
| VP-S (ours) | 2.05e-01 | 28.48 | 0.804 | 7.89e-01 | 30.59 | 0.801 | |
| VP-SC (ours) | 1.96e-01 | 28.86 | 0.797 | 8.42e-01 | 30.02 | 0.787 | |
| FA-INR | None | 4.96e-02 | 40.81 | 0.961 | 6.40e-01 | 32.40 | 0.764 |
Appendix figures & tables17 assets
Supplementary material from the paper’s appendix.
Appendix
| Model | Hyperparameter | Nyx | MPAS-Ocean | Cloverleaf3D |
| K-Planes | Spatial Plane Base Resolution | |||
| Spatial Plane Multi-Res Multipliers | ||||
| Condition-Only Plane Resolution | ||||
| Plane Embedding Dim | 32 | 32 | 32 | |
| Decoder MLP Hidden Dim | 128 | 128 | 128 | |
| Decoder MLP Layers | 3 layers | 3 layers | 3 layers |
| Dataset | epochs | condition batch size | coordinate batch size | condition- impsmp | coordinate-impsmp |
| Nyx | 50 | 16 | |||
| MPAS-Ocean | 50 | 16 | |||
| Cloverleaf3D | 50 | 32 |
| Dataset | Model | Unseen Fields (Rel L2 / PSNR / SSIM ) | Trained Fields (Rel L2 / PSNR / SSIM ) | Inference Time (sec) | # Params |
| Nyx | K-Planes | 1.49e-01 / 29.44 / 0.667 | 1.46e-01 / 29.91 / 0.688 | 11.4s | 3.9M |
| FA-INR | 2.78e-02 / 44.00 / 0.987 | 2.76e-02 / 44.38 / 0.988 | 156.3s | 9.5M | |
| Explorable-INR | 4.46e-02 / 39.89 / 0.979 | 3.29e-02 / 42.86 / 0.984 | 6.5s | 10.0M | |
| DRR-Net (ours) | 1.11e-02 / 51.95 / 0.998 | 1.15e-02 / 51.99 / 0.998 | 8.0s | 8.7M | |
| Cloverleaf3D | K-Planes | 4.33e-01 / 35.32 / 0.903 | 4.15e-01 / 35.94 / 0.909 | 16.1s | 3.1M |
| FA-INR | 9.92e-02 / 48.12 / 0.991 | 6.24e-02 / 52.39 / 0.995 | 53.8s | 1.0M |
| Dataset | DRR-Net Variants | Rel L2 | PSNR | SSIM | TFLOPs / pts | # Params |
| Nyx | Embedding-Only | 4.02e-02 | 42.64 | 0.979 | 40.1 | 8.1M |
| + Spatial Refiner | 3.17e-02 | 44.71 | 0.986 | 57.2 | 8.7M | |
| + Condition Refiner | 3.18e-02 | 44.69 | 0.986 | 57.2 | 8.9M | |
| MPAS-Ocean | Embedding-Only | 1.24e-02 | 45.22 | - | 25.8 | 3.57M |
| + Spatial Refiner | 8.54e-03 | 48.43 | - | 47.3 | 4.57M | |
| + Condition Refiner | 7.76e-03 | 49.26 | - | 47.3 | 4.64M |
| Dataset | Refinement Regime | Rel L2 | PSNR | SSIM | TFLOPs / pts | # Params |
| Nyx | No Refinement | 4.02e-02 | 42.64 | 0.979 | 40.1 | 8.1M |
| + Refiners | 4.48e-02 | 41.70 | 0.975 | 40.1 | 8.3M | |
| Refinement | 4.04e-02 | 42.60 | 0.978 | 55.9 | 8.1M | |
| + Refiners | 3.18e-02 | 44.69 | 0.986 | 57.2 | 8.9M | |
| MPAS-Ocean | No Refinement | 1.24e-02 | 45.22 | - | 25.8 | 3.57M |
| + Refiners | 1.38e-02 | 44.29 | - | 25.8 | 3.65M |
| Gigapixel Image | Model | PSNR | SSIM | LPIPS | Inference Time (sec) | # Params |
| Girl with a Pearl Earring 23466 20000 | Grid | 25.80 | 0.9180 | 0.2504 | 0.86s | 4.2M |
| + DRR | +0.12 | +0.0016 | -0.0040 | 1.16s | 4.3M | |
| MRGrid | 25.86 | 0.9191 | 0.2468 | 1.17s | 4.2M | |
| + DRR | -0.02 | -0.0012 | +0.0055 | 2.28s | 4.3M | |
| NGP | 26.45 | 0.9154 | 0.2235 | 0.90s | 5.2M | |
| SIREN | 24.64 | 0.8713 | 0.2827 | 27.82s | 2.1M |
| Gigapixel Image | Model | PSNR | SSIM | LPIPS | Inference Time (sec) | # Params |
| Girl with a Pearl Earring Train: 11733 10000 Test: 23466 20000 | Grid | 25.80 | 0.9178 | 0.2514 | 0.88s | 4.2M |
| + DRR | +0.13 | +0.0021 | -0.0053 | 1.16s | 4.3M | |
| MRGrid | 25.86 | 0.9188 | 0.2489 | 1.19s | 4.2M | |
| + DRR | +0.03 | +0.0003 | +0.0009 | 3.21s | 4.3M | |
| NGP | 26.31 | 0.9151 | 0.2354 | 0.90s | 5.2M | |
| SIREN | 24.81 | 0.8776 | 0.2786 | 27.82s | 2.1M |
| Dataset | Model | PSNR | LPIPS | Inference Time (sec) | # Params |
| Lego | Grid | 33.33 | 0.041 | 48s | 33.6M |
| + DRR | +0.06 | +0.002 | 51s | 33.6M | |
| MRGrid | 32.49 | 0.053 | 55s | 19.0M | |
| + DRR | +0.31 | -0.001 | 51s | 19.0M | |
| TriPlane | 35.32 | 0.032 | 71s | 9.4M | |
| + DRR | +0.07 | -0.005 | 67s | 9.7M |
Implicit Neural Representations
Implicit neural representations encode signals and fields as continuous functions that can be queried at arbitrary coordinates and resolutions.
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