Gaussian splatting provides a new technique for representing real-life scenes in 3D, one that captures lighting and reflections as well as geometry. A company from Japan has now sprung to attention by showing the power of the technique when combined with Unreal Engine 5 to create explorable visualisations.
The video below shows an indoor scene is from Fuji Kyoiku, a model shop in Matsuyama City, Ehime Prefecture, while the outdoor scene is Yonezawa Castle Ruins and Matsugasaki Park in Yamagata Prefecture. Both cases show a a stunning level of detail and fidelity.
The environmental phototogrammertrist company Studio Duckbill says the footage was converted into 3D Gaussian splatting using the Postshot beta plugin and displayed in UE5. The results show great display quality. "As long as you clean the floater on the floor, it will be perfect," they say on X.
Some people asked how the company made the stairs usable, for which Duckbill recommends using some kind of mesh in UE5 to set up collision. You can explore a photogrammetric 3D model of the model shop on Sketchfab.
In other news, Epic Games Fab has just launched as the replacement for Sketchfab and the Unreal Engine Marketplace for the buying, selling and sharing digital assets. Meanwhile, Adobe has launched its new free tool Substance 3D Viewer, which supports the generation of 3D models as gaussian splats.
