3D Gaussian Splatting

What is 3D Gaussian Splatting?

Gaussian splatting is a rasterization technique for 3D reconstruction and rendering.

A recent breakthrough paper by researchers at Inria (Université Côte d’Azur) and the Max Planck Institute outlines a process to generate the data needed for 3D Gaussian Splatting from a set of images.

How do I create a splat?

You can create a Gaussian Splatting reconstruction right on this page! Tap the ‘Create’ button above, and follow the prompts to set up an account/profile.

Your image set should be between 20 and 200 images, in either PNG or JPG format.

For the best results, your image set should follow photogrammetry best practices. With Gaussian Splatting, it is extra important that your images or video do not have any motion blur or shallow depth of field (bokeh) effects. Uniformly crisp, well-lit images will produce the highest-quality reconstructions. Drone images work great. Be careful of getting too close to the subject – our experiments so far have had trouble with more macro / close-up images.

Can I import splats into other software?

Most 3D software doesn’t support Gaussian Splatting yet. However, compared to other radiance-field-based techniques such as NeRFs, Gaussian Splats have a much easier pathway to being integrated into existing renderers.

In addition, some plugins already exist for Unity and Unreal, and more are being released every week.

Note: if you have requests about specific export formats, please hop into our Discord server and let us know! We are interested in any emerging standard format for Gaussian Splatting files.

How does 3D Gaussian Splatting work?

Polycam captures generated with LiDAR or photogrammetry represent 3D data as polygonal meshes with corresponding image textures.

3D Gaussian Splatting represents a 3D scene as millions of particles – 3D Gaussians. Each 3D Gaussian comes with a position/orientation/scale, as well as an opacity and view-dependent color.

To render these particles efficiently, they are converted into 2D space (“splatted”), and then organized/sorted for performant rendering.

You can learn more about the process with some helpful write-ups here and here.

Can I use my old Polycam captures?

Yes, if you still have the raw data from an older Polycam capture, you can export the raw images from the Polycam app and upload them here.

In the Export view for an individual capture, scroll down to “raw images” and select it. This will generate a ZIP file, which you can send to your computer. Unpack the ZIP and upload the images here to generate a new Gaussian Splat.

How do I report bugs/issues?

Please hop into our Discord server, and share your experience with the tool! Also, please note that this is still an experimental tool! Please be patient as we iron out any kinks.

Also please tag us on the site formerly known as Twitter - @Polycam3D - if you end up posting your results there.

Performance notes

Native mobile support in the Polycam app is coming soon. For now, we recommend using a desktop browser to view our splat renderer. Chrome seems to perform a bit better than Firefox/Safari.