TraceFlow: Dynamic 3D Reconstruction of Specular Scenes Driven by Ray Tracing
Jiachen Tao, Junyi Wu, Haoxuan Wang, Zongxin Yang, Dawen Cai, Yan Yan
TL;DR
TraceFlow is a new framework for high-fidelity, dynamic 3D scene reconstruction that accurately models specular reflections using a novel Gaussian splatting representation and hybrid rendering techniques.
Contribution
It introduces a Residual Material-Augmented Gaussian Splatting method and a hybrid rendering pipeline for realistic specular reflection synthesis in dynamic scenes.
Findings
Outperforms prior methods in dynamic scene benchmarks
Produces sharper, more realistic specular reflections
Effective in complex dynamic environments
Abstract
We present TraceFlow, a novel framework for high-fidelity rendering of dynamic specular scenes by addressing two key challenges: precise reflection direction estimation and physically accurate reflection modeling. To achieve this, we propose a Residual Material-Augmented 2D Gaussian Splatting representation that models dynamic geometry and material properties, allowing accurate reflection ray computation. Furthermore, we introduce a Dynamic Environment Gaussian and a hybrid rendering pipeline that decomposes rendering into diffuse and specular components, enabling physically grounded specular synthesis via rasterization and ray tracing. Finally, we devise a coarse-to-fine training strategy to improve optimization stability and promote physically meaningful decomposition. Extensive experiments on dynamic scene benchmarks demonstrate that TraceFlow outperforms prior methods both…
Peer Reviews
Decision·Submitted to ICLR 2026
### Strengths 1. Quantitative results outperform baselines. 2. Extending the environment Gaussian representation to handle dynamic specular scenes significantly enhances quality.
### Weaknesses 1. Qualitative results show limited improvement over baselines in most cases. For instance, in the second row of Figure 3, specular reflections in highlighted regions are comparable to SpectroMotion. Even in stronger cases (first row), while more details are captured than SpectroMotion, spurious artifacts absent in the ground truth are introduced. 2. Ablation studies are conducted only on the Plate scene; validation across all four qualitative scenes is recommended to strengthen g
1. This work effectively leverages 2DGS-based normals together with priors from foundation models to enhance surface normal accuracy, leading to improved specular rendering quality. The motivation for this design choice is clear and well-formulated. 2. The explicit modeling of temporally varying environments and reflected-ray tracing contributes to more accurate reconstruction of reflective and dynamically illuminated scenes, improving overall quality.
1. The experimental evaluation could be improved for further validation. For example, ablation studies are conducted on a single scene, and the performance gains on HyperNeRF are modest, raising questions about the method’s generalizability. The rendered normals also appear noisy, undermining the performance and reliability of the proposed method. Additional quantitative and qualitative experiments on surface normal accuracy and specular component modelling could be included to demonstrate the e
1.By integrating Dynamic Environment Gaussians and a hybrid rasterization–ray tracing pipeline, the method achieves realistic and physically consistent specular rendering. 2.The coarse-to-fine training strategy effectively stabilizes optimization and promotes meaningful separation of diffuse and specular components. 3.Extensive experiments on dynamic scene benchmarks demonstrate clear quantitative and qualitative improvements over state-of-the-art baselines.
1.The method integrates existing components, 2D Gaussian Splatting, dynamic environment modeling, and ray tracing, into a unified framework, showing limited conceptual innovation. 2.The computation of the specular term largely follows EnvGS and relies on a single reflection ray, which restricts its effectiveness in scenes with complex or glossy interactions. 3.The ablation study focuses mainly on temporal and geometric aspects, while the specular and ray-tracing components, central to the pape
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Taxonomy
TopicsComputer Graphics and Visualization Techniques · Image Enhancement Techniques · Color Science and Applications