3D Gaussian Splats of Local Flora
I am getting a bit obsessed with capturing 3D gaussian splats of flowers & plants.
If you’re interested in creating your own gaussian splats, I can recommend trying out Luma AI (web, cloud processing), Jawset Postshot (desktop, local processing), and Scaniverse (iOS app, local processing).
I’ve enjoyed capturing things in 3D using photogrammetry and phone based LiDAR for a some time, but recently I have a renewed enthusiasm for making myself look suspicious and weird in public: I love capturing plants and flowers as gaussian splats 💚
As always, I suggest you don’t just watch the video but also click or tap over to experience the 3D scenes interactively (links below). Doing so is not only a more fun experience (imo), it will also give you a better understanding of how this form of 3D capture might be useful for in your own work:
Full disclosure: some of these plant names may be incorrect as, apart from common gorse which is an easy one, I had to use reverse image search to find out the names of which plants I had actually captured 😅 This i, one of the things I like about my hobby, though: I see something interesting looking or something that just looks nice, I make a capture of it and then before I publish it online, I am compelled to discover at least some rudimentary information about my subject. Because without context, it’s just a bunch of colourful pixels, no?
What are 3D Gaussian Splats?
It’s definitely a weird name. Gaussian splats (“splats'“ or “gsplats” as some people shorten it to) are the proverbial new kid on the 3D rendering block, despite NeRFs just moving into the neighbourhood too.
If you’re not familiar with gaussian splatting I can really recommend this blog post by Aras Pranckevičius, or this video by Bad Decisions Studio.
There are many ways to process input imagery or video into a gaussian splat, currently my favourites are Luma AI and Polycam. You can view splats on both of these cloud platforms via the web or a respective app, and there is also an rudimentary viewer/editor for splats for the online WebGL game engine PlayCanvas called Super Splat. There are also various plugins to import splats into the Unreal Engine and Unity game engines, and Felix Herbst of Needle has also demonstrated some neat editing and authoring capabilities.
If you know another platform or service for working with gsplats, why not drop a link in the comments?
Some things I like about capturing gaussian splats are:
Capturing these scenes with a photogrammetry workflow just isn’t possible, so it’s fun to be able to add a new set of capture subjects to my list.
The capture process is incredibly easy: capture a video on your phone, literally just wave it slowly around the subject (you can upload a .zip of images to Luma AI instead of a video if you like though). Most of the above captures I share above were made with less than a minute of video.
All processing is done in the cloud: just upload the input data then sit back and wait for the notification that the capture has completed processing.
What are 3D gaussian splats good for?
At the time of writing, gaussian splats are mostly useful to enjoy as standalone pieces of 3D media, or in derivative form e.g. video or gifs or still renders.
Practical workflows for creating experiences with gsplats are no doubt in development, but right now you will need some coding chops to build a richer interactive experience on top of a splat.
Some very basic features I’d love to see made available for use with gaussian splats are:
Web based editing tools (orientation, cropping, scaling, simplification, etc.).
Annotation tools
Better embed options
Regardless of these missing features and considering how easy it is to create gaussian splats - and here I refer to the capture process, not access to technology which is a different matter - I’d really love to see someone build some kind of crowd sourced digital plan identification guide that leverages 3D media.
Long story short: I think gaussian splats are pretty good and could be great once their utility increases. What do you think? Could be a useful medium for in the cultural heritage industry to pursue? Then again, the sector is still wrestling with how to make the most of ‘regular’ 3D yet …so maybe we should tackle that first 😉
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