AstroSplat: Physics-Based Gaussian Splatting for Rendering and Reconstruction of Small Celestial Bodies

TL;DR

AstroSplat is a physics-based Gaussian splatting framework that enhances surface reconstruction and photometric analysis of small celestial bodies using in-situ imagery, validated on NASA Dawn mission data.

Contribution

It introduces a novel physics-based Gaussian splatting method that explicitly models material properties and light-surface interactions for celestial body imaging.

Findings

Superior rendering performance over traditional methods

Improved surface reconstruction accuracy

Effective in-situ imagery analysis for small celestial bodies

Abstract

Image-based surface reconstruction and characterization are crucial for missions to small celestial bodies (e.g., asteroids), as it informs mission planning, navigation, and scientific analysis. Recent advances in Gaussian splatting enable high-fidelity neural scene representations but typically rely on a spherical harmonic intensity parameterization that is strictly appearance-based and does not explicitly model material properties or light-surface interactions. We introduce AstroSplat, a physics-based Gaussian splatting framework that integrates planetary reflectance models to improve the autonomous reconstruction and photometric characterization of small-body surfaces from in-situ imagery. The proposed framework is validated on real imagery taken by NASA's Dawn mission, where we demonstrate superior rendering performance and surface reconstruction accuracy compared to the typical spherical harmonic parameterization.