Gaussian splatting is a volume rendering technique that enables the direct visualization of volume data without transforming it into surface or line primitives.
Initially introduced as "splatting" by Lee Westover in the early 1990s, it has since evolved with advancements in computer graphics. Modern adaptations of gaussian splatting include 3D Gaussian splatting, which enhances real-time radiance field rendering and enabling dynamic scene representation.
In real-time radiance field rendering, 3D Gaussian splatting offers high-quality, novel views of scenes using multiple photos or video footage.
This method is particularly valuable for reconstructing scenes, such as a collapsed building from drone footage, by leveraging 3D Gaussians to model continuous volumetric radiance fields.
Using sparse points from camera calibration, the technique introduces an anisotropic representation to optimize radiance fields, dynamically adjusting density and interleaving optimizations to refine the representation. Additionally, a GPU-optimized, visibility-aware rendering algorithm supports anisotropic splatting, enabling efficient and detailed real-time rendering.
And here, Niantic Labs, the developer of the world-appraised augmented reality (AR) mobile game Pokémon GO, has open sourced its SPZ file format.
This can mean a whole different thing for apps that want to
Today at @ARealityEvent @NianticLabs announced .SPZ, a new file format created just for #3DGaussianSplatting.
We developed the format to make it faster to upload and download splats for use in games and app development. They use less storage and memory on your device. SPZ is… pic.twitter.com/hmo3XnQSUn— Scaniverse (@Scaniverse) October 29, 2024
In the announcement:
"Niantic developed this format so Gaussian splats could be uploaded and downloaded reasonably quickly on a mobile device, and not take up too much on-device storage space. You can see the format in action by exporting an SPZ from the Scaniverse app and importing it into Niantic Studio."
In order to accelerate the development and the adoption of 3D Gaussian splatting, Niantic Labs have made the SPZ format freely available under an MIT License.
By making it open source, the company invites the public to download it, find bugs, and pull requests on GitHub.
"In particular, cross-platform ports would be a big help to the community; it's currently in C++ and we imagine JavaScript and Python implementations would be handy," said Niantic.
On its GitHub page, the developer said that the .spz file format is designed to compress 3D Gaussian splats, to significantly reduce file size, including quantization, reducing significant digits, and gzipping.
Despite being around 10 times smaller than the corresponding .ply files, SPZ can achieve such feat with minimal visual differences between the two.
Gaussian splatting is type of rasterization for real-time 3D reconstruction and rendering of images taken from multiple points of view.
It's is analogous to triangle rasterization in computer graphics, which is used to draw many triangles on the screen.
However, instead of drawing triangles, they are Gaussian. Therefore, it is described by parameters that include position, covariance, color and alpha.
Its 3D space is defined as a set of Gaussians, and each Gaussian’s parameters are calculated by AI.