The model requires just seconds to train on a few dozen still photos - plus data on the camera angles they were taken from - and can then render the resulting 3D scene within tens of milliseconds. The result, dubbed Instant NeRF, is the fastest NeRF technique to date, achieving more than 1,000x speedups in some cases. NVIDIA applied this approach to a popular new technology called neural radiance fields, or NeRF.

The NVIDIA Research team has developed an approach that accomplishes this task almost instantly - making it one of the first models of its kind to combine ultra-fast neural network training and rapid rendering. Known as inverse rendering, the process uses AI to approximate how light behaves in the real world, enabling researchers to reconstruct a 3D scene from a handful of 2D images taken at different angles. Today, AI researchers are working on the opposite: turning a collection of still images into a digital 3D scene in a matter of seconds.

When the first instant photo was taken 75 years ago with a Polaroid camera, it was groundbreaking to rapidly capture the 3D world in a realistic 2D image.

Nvidia capture