GSORB-SLAM: Gaussian Splatting SLAM benefits from ORB features and Transmittance information

The emergence of 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) has recently sparked a renewed wave of dense visual SLAM research. However, current methods face challenges such as sensitivity to artifacts and noise, sub-optimal selection of training viewpoints, and a lack of light global optimization. In this paper, we propose a dense SLAM system that tightly couples 3DGS with ORB features. We design a joint optimization approach for robust tracking and effectively reducing the impact of noise and artifacts. This involves combining novel geometric observations, derived from accumulated transmittance, with ORB features extracted from pixel data. Furthermore, to improve mapping quality, we propose an adaptive Gaussian expansion and regularization method that enables Gaussian primitives to represent the scene compactly. This is coupled with a viewpoint selection strategy based on the hybrid graph to mitigate over-fitting effects and enhance convergence quality. Finally, our approach achieves compact and high-quality scene representations and accurate localization. GSORB-SLAM has been evaluated on different datasets, demonstrating outstanding performance. The code will be available.