Free360: Layered Gaussian Splatting for Unbounded 360-Degree View Synthesis from Extremely Sparse and Unposed Views

Abstract

Neural rendering has demonstrated remarkable success in high-quality 3D neural reconstruction and novel view synthesis with dense input views and accurate poses. However, applying it to extremely sparse, unposed views in unbounded 360° scenes remains a challenging problem. In this paper, we propose a novel neural rendering framework to accomplish the unposed and extremely sparse-view 3D reconstruction in unbounded 360° scenes. To resolve the spatial ambiguity inherent in unbounded scenes with sparse input views, we propose a layered Gaussian-based representation to effectively model the scene with distinct spatial layers. By employing a dense stereo reconstruction model to recover coarse geometry, we introduce a layer-specific bootstrap optimization to refine the noise and fill occluded regions in the reconstruction. Furthermore, we propose an iterative fusion of reconstruction and generation alongside an uncertainty-aware training approach to facilitate mutual conditioning and enhancement between these two processes. Comprehensive experiments show that our approach outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods in terms of rendering quality and surface reconstruction accuracy. Project page: https://zju3dv.github.io/free360/.