3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) is a real-time radiance field rendering technique that represents scenes as millions of tiny colored blobs instead of meshes or neural networks. It's fast to train, renders in real time, and is increasingly integrated into game engines — making it a powerful tool for virtual production pipelines.
Free mobile app for capturing Gaussian splats with your phone camera. LiDAR-enhanced on supported devices. Exports .ply files compatible with most splat viewers and Unreal plugins.
Desktop app that converts photos or video into Gaussian splats. Clean UI, fast processing, and has a dedicated Unreal Engine plugin for direct import. Good middle ground between mobile capture and research tools.
Popular 3D scanning app with Gaussian splat export. Supports LiDAR and photogrammetry modes. Web editor for cleanup and sharing. Pro tier unlocks higher-quality exports.
Open-source framework supporting multiple radiance field methods including Splatfacto (their Gaussian splat implementation). Research-grade quality with a modular pipeline. Requires NVIDIA GPU and some technical comfort.
The original implementation from the 2023 SIGGRAPH paper by Kerbl et al. Gold standard for quality. Requires COLMAP for camera pose estimation. The foundation everything else builds on.
Generate 3D Gaussian splats directly from text prompts or reference images. Fast iteration for concept art and environment prototyping. Export as .ply for use in Unreal or other 3D tools.
Single-image to 3D Gaussian splat in under a second. Feed-forward model (no per-scene optimization). Great for rapid prototyping from AI-generated images.
Generates high-resolution Gaussian splats from single or multi-view images in ~5 seconds. Trained on Objaverse. Good for objects; environments still challenging.
Official Luma plugin for importing and rendering Gaussian splats in Unreal Engine. Real-time rendering with good visual quality. Supports .ply import and basic material overrides.
Companion plugin for PostShot captures. Drag-and-drop import, LOD support, and optimized for large scenes. Tighter integration than generic .ply importers.
Open-source Unreal plugin for 3DGS rendering. Supports large point clouds, custom shaders, and integration with Unreal's lighting system. Active development.
Decomposes Gaussian splats into diffuse color, specular, and normal components — enabling dynamic relighting in real time. The key breakthrough for VP use: splats that respond to scene lights instead of baking illumination.
Large reconstruction model that produces relightable Gaussian splats from sparse images in seconds. Promising for rapid environment generation from AI images where relighting is needed.
Uses flat 2D discs instead of 3D ellipsoids. Produces cleaner surfaces that are easier to convert to meshes — useful when you want to export to Unreal's native mesh pipeline for full material and lighting support.
Extracts clean triangle meshes from Gaussian splats. The "escape hatch" — when you need splat-quality capture but traditional mesh workflows for texturing, rigging, or Unreal's native lighting.
Lightweight browser-based Gaussian splat viewer. Drag and drop .ply or .splat files. Great for quick previews and sharing captures with collaborators.
Browser-based editor for Gaussian splats. Crop, clean, transform, and export. Useful for trimming captures before importing into Unreal.