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nerfstudio-project/nerfstudio

11,559PythonAudience · researcherComplexity · 4/5LicenseSetup · hard

TLDR

A Python framework for turning a set of photos into an interactive 3D scene you can fly through in a browser. Designed to make neural 3D reconstruction approachable for researchers and developers.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((repo))
    What It Does
      Photos to 3D scene
      Novel view synthesis
      Browser 3D viewer
    Tech Stack
      Python
      PyTorch
      CUDA
      NVIDIA GPU
    Methods Included
      nerfacto default
      Multiple NeRF variants
    Use Cases
      Scene reconstruction
      Research experiments
      Method benchmarking
    Requirements
      GPU required
      pip or conda install
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Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Train a 3D model from photos of a room or object and explore it in a browser-based 3D viewer

USE CASE 2

Swap out individual pipeline components to experiment with different NeRF methods on the same dataset

USE CASE 3

Use the modular architecture as a research base for developing and benchmarking new 3D reconstruction techniques

Tech stack

PythonPyTorchCUDANVIDIA GPUDocker

Getting it running

Difficulty · hard Time to first run · 1h+

Requires an NVIDIA GPU with CUDA installed, CPU-only machines cannot train NeRF models.

Use freely for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you keep the copyright notice.

In plain English

Nerfstudio is a Python framework for working with NeRFs, which stands for Neural Radiance Fields. A NeRF is a technique that takes a set of photos of a real-world object or scene, trains a neural network on them, and produces a model that can then generate new views of that scene from any camera angle, including angles that were never photographed. The result is a kind of interactive 3D reconstruction made entirely from ordinary photos. This library, started by students at Berkeley AI Research in 2022, aims to make that process more approachable. It breaks the NeRF pipeline into modular, documented pieces so that researchers and developers can swap out individual components, try different approaches, and understand what each part does. The goal is to lower the barrier for people learning about NeRF techniques, while also giving more experienced researchers a flexible base for experiments. To use nerfstudio you need a computer with an NVIDIA graphics card and CUDA installed, since training a NeRF requires GPU processing. After installing via pip or conda (or running a Docker image), you can start training on a provided test dataset with a single command. The default model is called nerfacto, which the project recommends for real-world scenes. Training produces a model you can explore through a browser-based 3D viewer that lets you move a virtual camera through the reconstructed scene. The library supports multiple different NeRF methods beyond the default, and the project encourages contributors to add new models, datasets, and improvements. There is a Discord community for questions, a feedback form for suggestions, and documentation hosted separately. The project is sponsored by Luma AI and the Berkeley AI Research Commons and is available under the Apache 2.0 license.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
I have a set of 100 photos of my living room and I want to use nerfstudio to create a 3D walkthrough. Walk me through the steps: data preparation, training with nerfacto, and viewing the result in the browser viewer.
Prompt 2
In nerfstudio, how do I add a custom NeRF model so it appears as a selectable method alongside the built-in ones? Show me the files I need to create and the registration step.
Prompt 3
I trained a nerfacto model in nerfstudio. Now I want to export it so I can embed the 3D scene on a website. What export formats are supported and how do I do it?
Prompt 4
Help me set up nerfstudio using the Docker image on a machine with an NVIDIA GPU, then run a quick training job on the provided example dataset to confirm everything works.
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