From Fields to Splats: A Cross-Domain Survey of Real-Time Neural Scene Representations

Abstract

Neural scene representations such as Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) and 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) have transformed how 3D environments are modeled, rendered, and interpreted. NeRF introduced view-consistent photorealism via volumetric rendering; 3DGS has rapidly emerged as an explicit, efficient alternative that supports high-quality rendering, faster optimization, and integration into hybrid pipelines for enhanced photorealism and task-driven scene understanding. This survey examines how 3DGS is being adopted across SLAM, telepresence and teleoperation, robotic manipulation, and 3D content generation. Despite their differences, these domains share common goals: photorealistic rendering, meaningful 3D structure, and accurate downstream tasks. We organize the review around unified research questions that explain why 3DGS is increasingly displacing NeRF-based approaches: What technical advantages drive its adoption? How does it adapt to different input modalities and domain-specific constraints? What limitations remain? By systematically comparing domain-specific pipelines, we show that 3DGS balances photorealism, geometric fidelity, and computational efficiency. The survey offers a roadmap for leveraging neural rendering not only for image synthesis but also for perception, interaction, and content creation across real and virtual environments.