Underwater 3D Reconstruction

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Overview

Underwater 3D reconstruction estimates the shape, appearance, and sometimes motion of submerged scenes for mapping, inspection, and scientific measurement, where refraction, light loss, backscatter, and turbidity complicate ordinary vision. Methods range from structure-from-motion and visual-inertial SLAM to learned depth and point maps, neural radiance fields, and Gaussian splatting; many now model water effects explicitly or fuse cameras with sonar, inertial sensors, and Doppler velocity logs. Evaluation uses underwater video and image benchmarks, sonar data, field surveys, and comparisons against registered acoustic or geometric measurements. A central tension is that models can produce convincing views in controlled settings yet remain unreliable for metric geometry in sparse, turbid, dynamically lit, or otherwise difficult real-world surveys.

Latest papers

CardsList

38 papers6 papers in the last four weeks, up 50% on the four weeks before. 0.0% of all new papers.

  1. Why 3D Reconstruction Breaks Down on Under-Ice AUV Video, and How to Predict It

    Oct 14, 2026Ana-Ştefania Kogălniceanu, Klára Orbán, Ashwin Nedungadi +23D ReconstructionUnderwater 3D Reconstruction

    Babes,-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania · University of Rostock, Germany

  2. Benchmarking 3D Reconstruction for Under-Ice Robotic Perception in Arctic Environments

    Oct 13, 2026Klára Orbán, Ashwin Nedungadi, Ana-Ştefania Kogălniceanu +53D ReconstructionUnderwater 3D Reconstruction

    Faculty of Mathematics & Computer Science, Babes,-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania · Institute of Visual & Analytic Computing, University of Rostock, Germany

  3. PUGS: Physics-Guided Uncertainty Modeling for Underwater Dynamic 3D Gaussian Splatting

    Oct 13, 2026Tingjun Li, Yuxi Wang, Guoqiang Zhong +1UQ for 3D Reconstruction3D Reconstruction

    College of Computer Science and Technology, Faculty of Information Science and Engineering, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, China · New Laboratory of Pattern Recognition (NLPR), State Key Laboratory of Multimodal Artificial Intelligence Systems, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CASIA), and University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), Beijing 100049, China

  4. Image-Space Refraction Correction for Underwater 3D Reconstruction: Warping Flat-Port Views into Pinhole Perspective

    Oct 6, 2026Chelim Lim, Tobias Fischer, Emilio Olivastri +3Underwater ImagingUnderwater 3D Reconstruction

  5. SURGE: Sonar-fUsed Reconstruction and localization via image-gated Graph Estimation

    Oct 5, 2026Mohammed Ibrahim M, Vallabh Deogaonkar, Trung Dong +3Underwater 3D ReconstructionRobot Localization

    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of South Florida Tampa, FL, USA · Department of Ocean Engineering Indian Institute of Technology Madras Chennai, India · Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering Seoul National University Seoul, South Korea

  6. Video2SwimFish: An Automated Pipeline for Reconstructing Controllable Fish Models and Biological Locomotion from Real Fish Videos

    Sep 30, 2026Hangong Chen, Linfeng Cheng, Tahsin Zaman Jilan +4Underwater 3D ReconstructionRobot Locomotion

    Department of Computer Science, North Carolina A&T State University · Department of Computer Science, University of Maryland, College Park

  7. OceanXL: Large-scale Underwater 3D Gaussian Splatting via Block Partitioning and Adaptive Pruning

    Sep 24, 2026Haoran Wang, Shaoyu Cai, Adrian Azzarelli +73D Gaussian Splatting3D Gaussian Pruning

    University of Bristol, UK · National University of Singapore, Singapore · National Park Service’s Submerged Resources Center, USA

  8. Beyond the Flat Seafloor: A Closed-Form Two-View Constraint to Aid Sidescan Sonar Reconstruction

    Sep 21, 2026Kalin Norman, Joshua G. MangelsonMulti-View GeometryUnderwater 3D Reconstruction

    Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah

  9. Geometry beneath the Waves: Dense Priors for Sparse-View Underwater 3D Gaussian Splatting

    Sep 16, 2026Harvey Caldeira, Haoran Wang, Guoxi Huang +33D Gaussian SplattingDomain Adaptation

    University of Bristol Bristol, United Kingdom · National University of Singapore Singapore, Singapore · Oceanx New York, USA

  10. Adapting Vision Foundation Models to Acoustics for Pose-Free 3D Sonar Reconstruction

    Sep 5, 2026Kevin Zhang, Jingxi Chen, Mohamad Qadri +5Underwater 3D Reconstruction3D Reconstruction

    University of Maryland, College Park · Carnegie Mellon University · University of Rhode Island +1

  11. 3D-USE: From Image-Level to Scene-Level Underwater Enhancement

    Aug 28, 2026Jieyu Yuan, Yuanlin Zhang, Jihong Li +3Underwater Image EnhancementUnderwater 3D Reconstruction

    College of Computer Science, Nankai University · NKIARI, Shenzhen Futian · School of Automation, Southeast University +1

  12. Gaussian Splatting Underwater: A Controlled Cross-Regime Study

    Aug 26, 2026Olaya Álvarez-Tuñón, Stella GraßhofUnderwater 3D Reconstruction3D Gaussian Splatting

  13. AquaFlow: A Monocular Gaussian Splatting SLAM for Underwater Streaming Reconstruction

    Aug 24, 2026Yingxiang Xu, Kerui Ren, Wenqi Guo +4Underwater 3D Reconstruction3DGS SLAM

    Zhejiang University · Shanghai AI Laboratory · Shanghai Jiao Tong University +3

  14. NemoSplat: Feed-Forward 4D Gaussian Splatting for Media-Aware Underwater Reconstruction

    Aug 24, 2026Xiaopeng Guo, Wai Chung Tse, Yipeng Zhu +3Dynamic Scene ReconstructionUnderwater 3D Reconstruction

    The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, China · Beijing Institute of Technology, China

  15. A Vision-based Control Framework for Real-time Autonomous UUV Operations

    Aug 5, 2026Erik Tjærand Frøland, Marco Job, Md Ether Deowan +1Robot NavigationUnderwater 3D Reconstruction

    Dept. of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, NTNU, Norway · Oceaneering AS, Norway

  16. Swimm3R: Splatting with Medium-aware SfM for Underwater 3D Reconstruction

    Aug 2, 2026Minseong Kweon, Junaed Sattar3D Gaussian SplattingUnderwater Imaging

    Department of Computer Science & Engineering and the Minnesota Robotics Institute (MnRI), University of Minnesota–Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA

  17. WAT3R: Feedforward Underwater 3D Reconstruction

    Jul 23, 2026Jiayi Xu, Jiahao Lu, Ziqiang Zheng +4Underwater Imaging3D Reconstruction

    The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology · The Chinese University of Hong Kong · Peking University

  18. Mapping Pamir: Multi-Session Visual-Inertial SLAM and 3D Reconstruction of an Underwater Shipwreck

    Jul 12, 2026Michalis Chatzispyrou, Luke Horgan, Hyunkil Hwang +6Simultaneous Localization and Mapping3D Reconstruction

    University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA · Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ, USA · Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY, USA +1

  19. Wat3R: Underwater 3D Geometry Learning without Annotations

    Jul 9, 2026Jiangwei Ren, Xingyu Jiang, Zijie Song +4Multi-View Depth EstimationUnderwater Imaging

    Huazhong University of Science and Technology

  20. Disturbance-aware Motion Planning for Over-actuated Underwater Vehicles Exploiting Actuation Redundancy for High-fidelity 3D Reconstruction

    Jul 8, 2026Yuer Gao, Tongqing Xu, Qingyang Liu +13D ReconstructionUnderwater 3D Reconstruction

    Smart Manufacturing Thrust, Systems Hub, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), Guangzhou, China

  21. Ocean4D: Generative Underwater 4D Reconstruction via Medium-Aware Video Diffusion

    Jun 22, 2026Yuqiang Huang, Yuxi Wang, Junyu Dong +1Camera-Conditioned Video Generation4D Reconstruction

    Faculty of Information Science and Engineering, Ocean University of China · Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences

  22. Towards 3D karst underwater scene reconstruction from rotating sonar data

    Jun 18, 2026Georgios Evangelos Margaritis, Lionel Lapierre, Simon Rohou +3Underwater Imaging3D Reconstruction

    1U2IS, ENSTA, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, 91120 Palaiseau, France

  23. Underwater360: Reconstructing Underwater Scenes from Panoramic Images with Omnidirectional Gaussian Splatting

    May 26, 2026Jiangbei Hu, Weichao Song, Shibo Yu +83D Gaussian SplattingUnderwater Imaging

    School of Software, Dalian University of Technology · College of Computing and Data Science, Nanyang Technological University

  24. Single View Seafloor Recovery from Imaging Sonar via Differentiable Rendering

    May 22, 2026Sevan Brodjian, Michael Hobley, Pietro PeronaDifferentiable RenderingUnderwater Imaging

    California Institute of Technology

  25. BathyFacto: Refraction-Aware Two-Media Neural Radiance Fields for Bathymetry

    May 11, 2026Markus Brezovsky, Anatol Günthner, Frederik Schulte +3Underwater Imaging3D Reconstruction

    Department of Geodesy and Geoinformation, TU Wien, Vienna, Austria · Institute of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (IPF), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany · Unit of Geometry and Surveying, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

  26. Spatiotemporal Degradation-Aware 3D Gaussian Splatting for Realistic Underwater Scene Reconstruction

    Apr 26, 2026Shaohua Liu, Ning Gao, Zuoya Gu +33D Gaussian SplattingUnderwater Imaging

    School of Astronautics Beihang University Beijing, China · Shen Yuan Honors College, Beihang University · School of Artificial Intelligence Beihang University Beijing, China +3

  27. BALTIC: A Benchmark and Cross-Domain Strategy for 3D Reconstruction Across Air and Underwater Domains Under Varying Illumination

    Apr 21, 2026Michele Grimaldi, David Nakath, Oscar Pizarro +33D Gaussian SplattingUnderwater Imaging

    School of Engineering & Physical Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK · Marine Data Science Group, Christian Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany · Department of Marine Technology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway +1

  28. ReefMapGS: Enabling Large-Scale Underwater Reconstruction by Closing the Loop Between Multimodal SLAM and Gaussian Splatting

    Apr 13, 2026Daniel Yang, Jungseok Hong, John J. Leonard +1Underwater 3D Reconstruction3DGS SLAM

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology · Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

  29. WaterSplat-SLAM: Photorealistic Monocular SLAM in Underwater Environment

    Apr 6, 2026Kangxu Wang, Shaofeng Zou, Chenxing Jiang +4Visual SLAMUnderwater 3D Reconstruction

    Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China · Key Laboratory of Marine Robotics, Shenyang 110169, China University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 101408, China · Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China

  30. Towards Versatile Opti-Acoustic Sensor Fusion and Volumetric Mapping

    Mar 15, 2026Ivana Collado-Gonzalez, John McConnell, Brendan EnglotUnderwater 3D ReconstructionUnderwater Robotics

    I. Collado-Gonzalez, and B. Englot are with Stevens Inst. of Technology, Hoboken, NJ, USA · J. McConnell is with the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD, USA