AIR: Amortized Image Reconstruction Framework for Self-Supervised Feed-Forward 2D Gaussian Splatting

TL;DR

AIR introduces a self-supervised, feed-forward framework for 2D Gaussian splatting that eliminates iterative optimization, enabling fast and high-quality image reconstruction.

Contribution

It proposes a novel stage-wise residual architecture with a stage control mechanism and a training strategy that stabilizes multi-stage prediction without per-image optimization.

Findings

Achieves better reconstruction quality than Gaussian-based baselines.

Reduces encoding time to 160--300 ms.

Operates without per-image iterative optimization.

Abstract

2D Gaussian splatting provides an efficient explicit representation for image reconstruction, but existing methods still require costly per-image iterative optimization or rely on handcrafted priors for primitive allocation. We present AIR, a self-supervised feed-forward framework that amortizes iterative Gaussian fitting into a single network pass, eliminating per-image test-time optimization. AIR adopts a stage-wise residual architecture that progressively predicts additional Gaussian primitives from reconstruction residuals, together with an explicit Stage Control mechanism that activates new primitives only in under-reconstructed regions. A Predict--Optimize--Distill training strategy stabilizes multi-stage prediction by distilling short-horizon optimized Gaussian increments back into the predictor. The stabilized predictor is then jointly finetuned across stages and equipped with an image-adaptive quantizer for compact Gaussian storage. Experiments on Kodak and DIV2K show that AIR achieves better reconstruction quality than representative Gaussian-based baselines while reducing encoding time to 160--300\,ms. Code: https://github.com/whoiszzj/AIR.git