4DGS-JEPA: Temporally Compositional Joint-Embedding Prediction for Dynamic Gaussian Splatting
Abstract
Dynamic Gaussian Splatting provides an explicit representation of evolving 3D scenes, but existing approaches are primarily optimized for reconstruction, future-state generation, or rendering rather than for learning reusable predictive dynamics. We propose 4DGS-JEPA, a Gaussian-native joint-embedding predictive architecture for causal multi-horizon prediction over dynamic Gaussian scenes. The model uses a hierarchical scene-, motion-group-, and Gaussian-level representation together with a horizon-conditioned transition operator that supports both direct prediction and recursive rollout. Its central principle is temporal composition: different chronological transition paths reaching the same future endpoint should produce compatible predictive states. Endpoint and multi-horizon path supervision anchor these predictions to future target embeddings, while a selective geometry decoder and geometry-level composition ground the learned dynamics in consistent group motion and Gaussian geometry without requiring complete future appearance reconstruction. We further introduce a hybrid correspondence mechanism that combines persistent canonical identity with residual optimal-transport matching under reordering and topology change. We characterize zero-loss path agreement and finite-error rollout accumulation theoretically. Three controlled experiments provide mechanism-level evidence that temporal composition reduces latent path dependence while retaining predictive accuracy, geometry-level composition improves consistency of decoded motion, and hybrid correspondence preserves reliable identity while remaining robust when correspondence becomes ambiguous. Together, 4DGS-JEPA provides a predictive, temporally compositional formulation of dynamic Gaussian worlds.
Figures & tables
| Method | Native state | Future target | JEPA | Full recon. | Path comp. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4D-GS ( Wu et al., 2024 ) | Gaussians | time query | no | yes | no |
| GWM ( Lu et al., 2025 ) | Gaussians | future Gaussians | no | yes | no |
| GAF ( Chai et al., 2025 ) | Gaussians | frame/action | no | yes | no |
| MoGaF ( Lee et al., 2026 ) | Gaussians | future Gaussians | no | yes | no |
| Structured 4D ( Li et al., 2026 ) | 3D latent | future 3D | no | yes | no |
| V-JEPA 2 ( Assran et al., 2025 ) | video latent | future latent | yes | no | no |
| Method | Direct FDE | Rollout FDE | CompErr | GeoCompErr | Unseen FDE | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Endpoint | ||||||
| Endpoint + Path | ||||||
| Endpoint + Composition | ||||||
| Endpoint + Path + Composition |
| Method | Direct FDE | Direct cov. err. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Latent composition only | |||||
| + composition | |||||
| Full geometry composition |
| Method | Permutation lineage | Split/merge lineage | Birth/death F1 | Geometry discrepancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Index matching | ||||
| OT only | ||||
| Hybrid |
Appendix figures & tables7 assets
Supplementary material from the paper’s appendix.
Appendix
| Quantity | Setting |
|---|---|
| Motion groups | |
| Gaussians per group | |
| Sequence length | |
| Group-center range | |
| Within-group center std. | |
| Initial Gaussian scale |
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Context length | |
| Train / validation / test scenes | |
| Train / validation / test samples | |
| Embedding dimension | |
| Decoder horizon embedding | |
| Transformer layers |
| Method | Held-out, seen segments | Unseen segments | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CompErr | GeoCompErr | CompErr | GeoCompErr | |
| Endpoint | ||||
| Endpoint + Path | ||||
| Endpoint + Composition | ||||
| Endpoint + Path + Composition | ||||
| Latent | + | Full | Latent | + | Full | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Active / reserved primitives | |
| Motion-group labels | |
| Semantic dimension | |
| Perturbation severities | |
| Position-noise std. | |
| Log-scale-noise std. |
| Severity | Method | LineageMass | Geometry discrepancy |
|---|---|---|---|
| OT only | |||
| Hybrid | |||
| OT only | |||
| Hybrid | |||
| OT only | |||
| Hybrid |
| Hidden IDs | OT lineage | Hybrid lineage | OT geometry | Hybrid geometry |
|---|---|---|---|---|