<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD Journal Publishing DTD v3.0 20080202//EN" "https://jats.nlm.nih.gov/nlm-dtd/publishing/3.0/journalpublishing3.dtd">
<article xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" article-type="research-article" dtd-version="3.0" xml:lang="en">
<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">ISPRS-Archives</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">ISPRS-Archives</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci.</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub">2194-9034</issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/isprs-archives-XLIX-B2-2026-1183-2026</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Evaluating Gaussian Splatting Maps for Absolute Visual Localization of UAVs</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Matzke</surname>
<given-names>Felix Rocco</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0009-0007-7195-162X</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Maas</surname>
<given-names>Hans-Gerd</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9034-3469</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Eltner</surname>
<given-names>Anette</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2065-6245</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Institute of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, TUD Dresden University of Technology, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>23</day>
<month>07</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>XLIX-B2-2026</volume>
<fpage>1183</fpage>
<lpage>1189</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Felix Rocco Matzke et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLIX-B2-2026/1183/2026/isprs-archives-XLIX-B2-2026-1183-2026.html">This article is available from https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLIX-B2-2026/1183/2026/isprs-archives-XLIX-B2-2026-1183-2026.html</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLIX-B2-2026/1183/2026/isprs-archives-XLIX-B2-2026-1183-2026.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/XLIX-B2-2026/1183/2026/isprs-archives-XLIX-B2-2026-1183-2026.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Localization within a global reference frame is critical for the safe operation of UAVs. It is typically realized through GNSS measurements, however when signals are jammed, spoofed, occluded or reflected, this approach can lead to errors or fail. As most UAVs are equipped with cameras, absolute visual localization using georeferenced map representations offers a promising alternative. The recent invention of Gaussian Splatting introduces new opportunities for this task, leveraging real-time rendering from novel views to establish 2D-3D correspondences for pose estimation. In this work, we investigate the use of Gaussian Splatting maps for absolute visual localization of UAVs with a particular focus on geometric accuracy and its impact on the accuracy of position estimation. Through experiments with real-world data, we show that an initialization with dense Structure from Motion point clouds does not improve geometric accuracy compared to sparse initialization under the current training scheme. Additionally, constraining the position optimization of Gaussian Splats shows potential for improved pose estimation but introduces challenges during training. Despite these limitations, our results demonstrate the feasibility of Gaussian Splatting-based absolute visual localization for UAVs.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="7"/></counts>
</article-meta>
</front>
<body/>
<back>
</back>
</article>