> Are there opportunities, where they exist, to not use optimization or tuning methods for reconstructing a model of a scene?
If you know a way, let me know! Every system I'm aware of involves optimization in one way or another, from COLMAP to 3D Gaussian Splatting to Instant NGP and more. Optimization is a powerful workhorse that gives us a far wider range of models than a direct solver ever could.
> Can we still achieve the great look and details of RF and GS without paying for an expensive reconstruction per instance of the scene?
In the future I hope so. We don't have a convincing way to generate 3D scenes yet, but given the progress in 2D, I think it's only a matter of time.
> Are there ways of greedily reconstructing a scene with traditional CG methods into these new representations now that they are fast to render?
Not that I'm aware of! If there were, I think these works should be on the front page instead of SMERF.
If you know a way, let me know! Every system I'm aware of involves optimization in one way or another, from COLMAP to 3D Gaussian Splatting to Instant NGP and more. Optimization is a powerful workhorse that gives us a far wider range of models than a direct solver ever could. > Can we still achieve the great look and details of RF and GS without paying for an expensive reconstruction per instance of the scene?
In the future I hope so. We don't have a convincing way to generate 3D scenes yet, but given the progress in 2D, I think it's only a matter of time.
> Are there ways of greedily reconstructing a scene with traditional CG methods into these new representations now that they are fast to render?
Not that I'm aware of! If there were, I think these works should be on the front page instead of SMERF.