# pixel-nerf

**Repository Path**: mirrors_sxyu/pixel-nerf

## Basic Information

- **Project Name**: pixel-nerf
- **Description**: PixelNeRF Official Repository
- **Primary Language**: Unknown
- **License**: BSD-2-Clause
- **Default Branch**: master
- **Homepage**: None
- **GVP Project**: No

## Statistics

- **Stars**: 2
- **Forks**: 1
- **Created**: 2022-01-11
- **Last Updated**: 2026-01-25

## Categories & Tags

**Categories**: Uncategorized

**Tags**: None

## README

# pixelNeRF: Neural Radiance Fields from One or Few Images

Alex Yu, Vickie Ye, Matthew Tancik, Angjoo Kanazawa<br>
UC Berkeley

![Teaser](https://raw.github.com/sxyu/pixel-nerf/master/readme-img/paper_teaser.jpg)

arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/2012.02190

This is the official repository for our paper, pixelNeRF, pending final release.
The two object experiment is still missing.
Several features may also be added.

# Environment setup

To start, we prefer creating the environment using conda:
```sh
conda env create -f environment.yml
conda activate pixelnerf
```
Please make sure you have up-to-date NVIDIA drivers supporting CUDA 10.2 at least.

Alternatively use `pip -r requirements.txt`.

# Getting the data

- For the main ShapeNet experiments, we use the ShapeNet 64x64 dataset from NMR
https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/avg-projects/differentiable_volumetric_rendering/data/NMR_Dataset.zip
(Hosted by DVR authors)
    - For novel-category generalization experiment, a custom split is needed.
      Download the following script:
      https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Uxf0GguAUTSFIDD_7zuPbxk1C9WgXjce/view?usp=sharing
      place the said file under `NMR_Dataset` and run `python genlist.py` in the said directory.
      This generates train/val/test lists for the experiment. Note for evaluation performance reasons,
      test is only 1/4 of the unseen categories.

- The remaining datasets may be found in
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PsT3uKwqHHD2bEEHkIXB99AlIjtmrEiR?usp=sharing
    - Custom two-chair `multi_chair_{train/val/test}.zip`. Download splits into a parent directory and pass the parent directory path to training command.
        - To render out your own dataset, feel free to use our script in `scripts/render_shapenet.py`. See `scripts/README.md` for installation instructions.
    - DTU (4x downsampled, rescaled) in DVR's DTU format `dtu_dataset.zip`
    - SRN chair/car (128x128) `srn_*.zip` needed for single-category exps.
      Note the car set is a re-rendered version provided by Vincent Sitzmann

While we could have used a common data format, we chose to keep
DTU and ShapeNet (NMR) datasets in DVR's format and SRN data in the original SRN format.
Our own two-object data is in NeRF's format.
Data adapters are built into the code.

# Running the model (video generation)

The main implementation is in the `src/` directory,
while evalutation scripts are in `eval/`.

First, download all pretrained weight files from
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UO_rL201guN6euoWkCOn-XpqR2e8o6ju/view?usp=sharing>.
Extract this to `<project dir>/checkpoints/`, so that `<project dir>/checkpoints/dtu/pixel_nerf_latest` exists.


## ShapeNet Multiple Categories (NMR)

1. Download NMR ShapeNet renderings (see Datasets section, 1st link)
2. Run using
    - `python eval/gen_video.py  -n sn64 --gpu_id <GPU(s)> --split test -P '2'  -D <data_root>/NMR_Dataset -S 0`
    - For unseen category generalization:
      `python eval/gen_video.py  -n sn64_unseen --gpu_id=<GPU(s)> --split test -P '2'  -D <data_root>/NMR_Dataset -S 0`

Replace `<GPU(s)>` with desired GPU id(s), space separated for multiple.  Replace `-S 0` with `-S <object_id>` to run on a different ShapeNet object id.
Replace `-P '2'` with `-P '<number>'` to use a different input view.
Replace `--split test` with `--split train | val` to use different data split.
Append `-R=20000` if running out of memory.

**Result will be at** `visuals/sn64/videot<object_id>.mp4` or `visuals/sn64_unseen/videot<object_id>.mp4`.
The script will also print the path.


Pre-generated results for all ShapeNet objects with comparison may be found at <https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~sxyu/ZG9yaWF0aA/pixelnerf/cross_v2/>

## ShapeNet Single-Category (SRN)

1. Download SRN car (or chair) dataset from Google drive folder in Datasets section.
Extract to `<srn data dir>/cars_<train | test | val>`
2. `python eval/gen_video.py -n srn_car --gpu_id=<GPU (s)> --split test -P '64 104' -D <srn data dir>/cars -S 1`

Use `-P 64` for 1-view (view numbers are from SRN).
The chair set case is analogous (replace car with chair).
Our models are trained with random 1/2 views per batch during training.
This seems to degrade performance especially for 1-view. It may be preferrable to use 
a fixed number of views instead.

## DTU

Make sure you have downloaded the pretrained weights above.

1. Download DTU dataset from Google drive folder in Datasets section. Extract to some directory, to get: `<data_root>/rs_dtu_4`
2. Run using `python eval/gen_video.py  -n dtu --gpu_id=<GPU(s)> --split val -P '22 25 28'  -D <data_root>/rs_dtu_4 -S 3 --scale 0.25`

Replace `<GPU(s)>` with desired GPU id(s). Replace `-S 3` with `-S <scene_id>` to run on a different scene. This is not DTU scene number but 0-14 in the val set.
Remove `--scale 0.25` to render at full resolution (quite slow).

**Result will be at** visuals/dtu/videov<scene_id>.mp4.
The script will also print the path.

Note that for DTU, I only use train/val sets, where val is used for test. This is due to the very small size of the dataset.
The model overfits to the train set significantly during training.

## Real Car Images

**Note: requires PointRend from detectron2.**
Install detectron2 by following https://github.com/facebookresearch/detectron2/blob/master/INSTALL.md.

Make sure you have downloaded the pretrained weights above.

1. Download any car image.
Place it in `<project dir>/input`. Some example images are shipped with the repo.
The car should be fully visible.
2. Run the preprocessor script: `python scripts/preproc.py`. This saves `input/*_normalize.png`.
If the result is not reasonable, PointRend didn't work; please try another imge.
3. Run `python eval/eval_real.py`. Outputs will be in `<project dir>/output`

The Stanford Car dataset contains many example car images:
<https://ai.stanford.edu/~jkrause/cars/car_dataset.html>.
Note the normalization heuristic has been slightly modified compared to the paper. There may be some minor differences.
You can pass `-e -20` to `eval_real.py` to set the elevation higher in the generated video.

# Overview of flags

Generally, all scripts in the project take the following flags
- `-n <expname>`: experiment name, matching checkpoint directory name
- `-D <datadir>`: dataset directory. 
    To save typing, you can set a default data directory for each expname in `expconf.conf` under `datadir`.
    For SRN/multi_obj datasets with
    separate directories e.g. `path/cars_train`, `path/cars_val`,
    put `-D path/cars`.
- `--split <train | val | test>`: data set split
- `-S <subset_id>`: scene or object id to render
- `--gpu_id <GPU(s)>`: GPU id(s) to use, space delimited. All scripts except `calc_metrics.py`
are parallelized. If not specified, uses GPU 0.
Examples: `--gpu_id=0` or `--gpu_id='0 1 3'`.
- `-R <sz>`: Batch size of rendered rays per object. Default is 50000 (eval) and 128 (train); make it smaller if you run out of memory.  On large-memory GPUs, you can set it to 100000 for eval.
- `-c <conf/*.conf>`: config file. *Automatically inferred* for the provided experiments from the expname. Thus the flag is only required when working with your own expnames.
                    You can associate a config file with any additional expnames in the `config` section of `<project root>/expconf.conf`.

Please refer the the following table for a list of provided experiments with associated config and data files:

| Name                       | expname -n    | config -c (automatic from expconf.conf)   | Data file                               | data dir -D       |
|----------------------------|---------------|-------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------|-------------------|
| ShapeNet category-agnostic | sn64          | conf/exp/sn64.conf                 | NMR_Dataset.zip (from AWS)              | path/NMR_Dataset  |
| ShapeNet unseen category   | sn64_unseen   | conf/exp/sn64_unseen.conf          | NMR_Dataset.zip (from AWS) + genlist.py | path/NMR_Dataset  |
| SRN chairs                 | srn_chair     | conf/exp/srn.conf                  | srn_chairs.zip                          | path/chairs       |
| SRN cars                   | srn_car       | conf/exp/srn.conf                  | srn_cars.zip                            | path/cars         |
| DTU                        | dtu           | conf/exp/dtu.conf                  | dtu_dataset.zip                         | path/rs_dtu_4     |
| Two chairs                 | mult_obj      | conf/exp/mult_obj.conf             | multi_chair_{train/val/test}.zip        | path              |


# Quantitative evaluation instructions

All evaluation code is in `eval/` directory.
The full, parallelized evaluation code is in `eval/eval.py`.

## Approximate Evaluation
The full evaluation can be extremely slow (taking many days), especially for the SRN dataset.
Therefore we also provide `eval_approx.py` for *approximate* evaluation.

- Example `python eval/eval_approx.py -D <srn_data>/cars -n srn_car`

Add `--seed <number>` to try a different random seed.

## Full Evaluation

Here we provide commands for full evaluation with `eval/eval.py`.
After running this you should also use `eval/calc_metrics.py`, described in the section below,
to obtain final metrics.

Append `--gpu_id=<GPUs>` to specify GPUs, for example `--gpu_id=0` or `--gpu_id='0 1 3'`.
**It is highly recommended to use multiple GPUs if possible to finish in reasonable time.**
We use 4-10 for evaluations as available.
Resume-capability is built-in, and you can simply run the command again to resume if the process is terminated.

In all cases, a source-view specification is required. This can be either `-P` or `-L`. `-P 'view1 view2..'` specifies
a set of fixed input views. In contrast, `-L` should point to a viewlist file (viewlist/src_*.txt) which specifies views to use for each object.

Renderings and progress will be saved to the output directory, specified by `-O <dirname>`.

### ShapeNet Multiple Categories (NMR)

- Category-agnostic eval `python eval/eval.py -D <path>/NMR_Dataset -n sn64 -L viewlist/src_dvr.txt --multicat -O eval_out/sn64`
- Unseen category eval `python eval/eval.py -D <path>/NMR_Dataset -n sn64_unseen -L viewlist/src_gen.txt --multicat -O eval_out/sn64_unseen`

### ShapeNet Single-Category (SRN)

- SRN car 1-view eval `python eval/eval.py -D <srn_data>/cars -n srn_car -P '64' -O eval_out/srn_car_1v`
- SRN car 2-view eval `python eval/eval.py -D <srn_data>/cars -n srn_car -P '64 104' -O eval_out/srn_car_2v`

The command for chair is analogous (replace car with chair). The input views 64, 104 are taken from SRN.
Our method is by no means restricted to using such views.

### DTU
- 1-view `python eval/eval.py -D <data>/rs_dtu_4 --split val -n dtu -P '25' -O eval_out/dtu_1v`
- 3-view `python eval/eval.py -D <data>/rs_dtu_4 --split val -n dtu -P '22 25 28' -O eval_out/dtu_3v`
- 6-view `python eval/eval.py -D <data>/rs_dtu_4 --split val -n dtu -P '22 25 28 40 44 48' -O eval_out/dtu_6v`
- 9-view `python eval/eval.py -D <data>/rs_dtu_4 --split val -n dtu -P '22 25 28 40 44 48 0 8 13' -O eval_out/dtu_9v`

In training, we always provide 3-views, so the improvement with more views is limited.

## Final Metric Computation

The above computes PSNR and SSIM without quantization. The final metrics we report in the paper
use the rendered images saved to disk, and also includes LPIPS + category breakdown.
To do so run the `eval/calc_metrics.py`, as in the following examples

- NMR ShapeNet experiment: `python eval/calc_metrics.py -D <data dir>/NMR_Dataset -O eval_out/sn64 -F dvr --list_name 'softras_test' --multicat --gpu_id=<GPU>`
- SRN car 2-view: `python eval/calc_metrics.py -D <srn data dir>/cars -O eval_out/srn_car_2v -F srn --gpu_id=<GPU>` (warning: untested after changes)
- DTU: `python eval/calc_metrics.py -D <data dir>/rs_dtu_4/DTU -O eval_out/dtu_3v -F dvr --list_name 'new_val' --exclude_dtu_bad --dtu_sort`

Adjust -O according to the -O flag of the eval.py command.
(Note: Currently this script has an ugly standalone argument parser.)
This should print a metric summary like the following
```
psnr 26.799268696042386
ssim 0.9102204550379002
lpips 0.10784384977842876
WROTE eval_sn64/all_metrics.txt
airplane     psnr: 29.756697 ssim: 0.946906 lpips: 0.084329 n_inst: 809
bench        psnr: 26.351427 ssim: 0.911226 lpips: 0.116299 n_inst: 364
cabinet      psnr: 27.720198 ssim: 0.910426 lpips: 0.104584 n_inst: 315
car          psnr: 27.579590 ssim: 0.942079 lpips: 0.094841 n_inst: 1500
chair        psnr: 23.835303 ssim: 0.857738 lpips: 0.145518 n_inst: 1356
display      psnr: 24.217023 ssim: 0.867284 lpips: 0.129138 n_inst: 219
lamp         psnr: 28.579184 ssim: 0.912794 lpips: 0.113561 n_inst: 464
loudspeaker  psnr: 24.435302 ssim: 0.855195 lpips: 0.140653 n_inst: 324
rifle        psnr: 30.597488 ssim: 0.968040 lpips: 0.065629 n_inst: 475
sofa         psnr: 26.944224 ssim: 0.907861 lpips: 0.116114 n_inst: 635
table        psnr: 25.591960 ssim: 0.898314 lpips: 0.098103 n_inst: 1702
telephone    psnr: 27.128039 ssim: 0.921897 lpips: 0.097074 n_inst: 211
vessel       psnr: 29.180307 ssim: 0.938936 lpips: 0.110670 n_inst: 388
---
total        psnr: 26.799269 ssim: 0.910220 lpips: 0.107844
```

# Training instructions

Training code is in `train/` directory, specifically `train/train.py`.

- Example for training to DTU: `python train/train.py -n dtu_exp -c conf/exp/dtu.conf -D <data dir>/rs_dtu_4 -V 3 --gpu_id=<GPU> --resume`
- Example for training to SRN cars, 1 view: `python train/train.py -n srn_car_exp -c conf/exp/srn.conf -D <srn data dir>/cars --gpu_id=<GPU> --resume`
- Example for training to ShapeNet multi-object, 2 view: `python train/train.py -n multi_obj -c conf/exp/multi_obj.conf -D <parent dir of splits> --gpu_id=<GPU> --resume`

Additional flags
- `--resume` to resume from checkpoint, if available. Usually just pass this to be safe.
- `-V <number>` to specify number of input views to train with. Default is 1.
    - `-V 'numbers separated by space'` to use random number of views per batch. This does not work so well in our experience but we use it for SRN experiment.
- `-B <number>` batch size of objects, default 4
- `--lr <learning rate>`, `--epochs <number of epochs>`
- `--no_bbox_step <number>` to specify iteration after which to stop using bounding-box sampling.
Set to 0 to disable.

If the checkpoint becomes corrupted for some reason (e.g. if process crashes when saving), a backup is saved to `checkpoints/<expname>/pixel_nerf_backup`.
To avoid having to specify -c, -D each time, edit `<project root>/expconf.conf` and add rows for your expname in the config and datadir sections.

## Log files and visualizations
View logfiles with `tensorboard --logdir <project dir>/logs/<expname>`.
Visualizations are written to  `<project dir>/visuals/<expname>/<epoch>_<batch>_vis.png`.
They are of the form
- Top coarse, bottom fine (1 row if fine sample disabled)
- Left-to-right: input-views, depth, output, alpha.

# BibTeX

```
@inproceedings{yu2021pixelnerf,
      title={{pixelNeRF}: Neural Radiance Fields from One or Few Images},
      author={Alex Yu and Vickie Ye and Matthew Tancik and Angjoo Kanazawa},
      year={2021},
      booktitle={CVPR},
}
```

# Acknowledgements

Parts of the code were based on from kwea123's NeRF implementation: https://github.com/kwea123/nerf_pl.
Some functions are borrowed from DVR https://github.com/autonomousvision/differentiable_volumetric_rendering
and PIFu https://github.com/shunsukesaito/PIFu