FilterGS: Traversal-Free Parallel Filtering and Adaptive Shrinking for Large-Scale LoD 3D Gaussian Splatting

arXiv cs.CV / 3/26/2026

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Key Points

  • FilterGS targets performance bottlenecks in large-scale Level-of-Detail (LoD) 3D Gaussian Splatting, where serial tree traversal can take more than 60% of rendering time.
  • The method introduces a traversal-free parallel filtering design that efficiently selects relevant Gaussian elements using two complementary filters rather than tree traversal.
  • FilterGS also defines a new GTC metric to measure redundancy in Gaussian–tile key-value pairs, enabling smarter reduction of wasted computation.
  • Using the GTC metric, the approach applies a scene-adaptive Gaussian shrinking strategy to decrease redundant Gaussian–tile processing while preserving visual quality.
  • Experiments on multiple large-scale datasets show state-of-the-art rendering speed improvements with competitive image quality, and the project is available via a public GitHub page.

Abstract

3D Gaussian Splatting has revolutionized neural rendering with real-time performance. However, scaling this approach to large scenes using Level-of-Detail methods faces critical challenges: inefficient serial traversal consuming over 60\% of rendering time, and redundant Gaussian-tile pairs that incur unnecessary processing overhead. To address these limitations, we introduce FilterGS, featuring a parallel filtering mechanism with two complementary filters that select Gaussian elements efficiently without tree traversal. Additionally, we propose a novel GTC metric that quantifies the redundancy of Gaussian-tile key-value pairs. Based on this metric, we introduce a scene-adaptive Gaussian shrinking strategy that effectively reduces redundant pairs. Extensive experiments demonstrate that FilterGS achieves state-of-the-art rendering speeds while maintaining competitive visual quality across multiple large-scale datasets. Project page: https://github.com/xenon-w/FilterGS