✨ 3D Gaussian Splatting: Getting Started & Software 2026
The fastest route to your first splat — and an honest overview of the tool landscape.
Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) is currently the best method for presenting a real scene photorealistically and in real time. Instead of a mesh, it stores millions of tiny, colored ellipsoids ("Gaussians"). This page shows you how to create your first splat in 2026 without prior knowledge, which software is good for what, and in which formats you pass the result on.
1. In short: why splatting instead of a mesh?
Photogrammetry delivers a mesh — clean, editable, but without real reflections and with visible limits on fur, foliage or reflections. Gaussian Splatting delivers a radiance field — it stores the appearance from every viewpoint and therefore often looks more photorealistic, especially on complex surfaces.
✅ Strengths of 3DGS
- Real-time rendering (60+ FPS)
- Photorealism incl. reflections/transparency
- Fast training (minutes)
- No neural network needed at runtime
⚠️ Limits of 3DGS
- No clean mesh (harder to edit)
- High VRAM demand during training
- Large raw files (compression needed)
- No classic PBR material separation
Against NeRF (the predecessor), 3DGS wins mainly on speed: it uses classic rasterization instead of ray marching through a network and therefore renders orders of magnitude faster. More fundamentals on the 3D Gaussian Splatting page.
2. Quick start: your first splat in 15 minutes
By far the easiest way in needs only a smartphone. Scaniverse (by Niantic) is free, runs on iOS and Android and trains the splat directly on the device — no cloud, no forced account, no PC.
Install the app
Download Scaniverse from the App Store / Play Store and open it.
Capture the object/scene
Start a new scan and choose "Splat" mode. Move slowly and evenly around the subject, covering all sides — as if you were filming it.
Let it process
After capture, the app computes on-device. After a few minutes you can rotate and view the splat directly.
Export / share
Scaniverse exports as .spz (Niantic's compact format) or .ply, among others. From there it goes into SuperSplat, Blender or a web embed later.
3. Capturing correctly
The capture determines the quality — whether phone or camera. The rules resemble photogrammetry, with one additional, critical point: the light must stay absolutely constant.
- Move slowly & evenly — no motion blur. For video, 4K/30 fps.
- Constant lighting — 3DGS stores view-dependent reflections; changing light produces "ghosts" and fog.
- Cover all angles, including from above and (if possible) below.
- Enough overlap between viewing directions, as in photogrammetry.
- Nothing moves in the scene (people, leaves, vehicles).
Video or photos? Video is more convenient and delivers many frames, but tends toward motion blur. Photos are sharper but more work. Desktop tools automatically extract individual frames from video.
4. Software comparison 2026
| Tool | Cost | Platform | Assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scaniverse | free | iOS, Android | The best free way to start. On-device, no account needed. Exports as SPZ/PLY. |
| Luma AI | Freemium | App + Cloud/Web | Upload a video → done. Very easy, the compute load is in the cloud. |
| Polycam | Subscription | iOS, Android, Web | Photogrammetry and 3DGS, a mature app. Splatting on the paid tier. |
| KIRI Engine | Freemium | iOS, Android, Web | App splatting on the paid tier; also offers a free Blender add-on. |
| Postshot (Jawset) | free | Windows | The best desktop entry point: GUI, trains 3DGS & NeRF locally, live preview. |
| Nerfstudio (splatfacto) | free | Linux/Windows (CUDA) | Pro framework, full control, gsplat backend. For terminal users. |
| SuperSplat (PlayCanvas) | free | Browser | Not training but a viewer & editor: delete floaters, crop, convert. |
5. Desktop training: Postshot & Nerfstudio
Postshot (Jawset) — the easy desktop route free
Postshot is a Windows GUI and the most convenient way to train locally on your own PC. Since the end of the beta (autumn 2025), all tiers are free.
- Import: drag in photos or video directly (JPG, PNG, TIF, EXR, DNG/RAW as well as MOV/MP4/MKV — frames are extracted automatically).
- Camera poses: Postshot computes the Structure-from-Motion internally, so you don't have to operate COLMAP yourself.
- Training: choose the target method (3DGS or NeRF), the splat count and the number of training steps. A live preview shows the progress.
- Export: as
.ply(standard) and other formats for viewers/engines.
Nerfstudio — pro-level control free
Nerfstudio is a Python framework with the splatfacto method on the gsplat backend. It offers full control, but is terminal-based. The typical workflow:
# 1) Compute camera poses from images/video (uses COLMAP)
ns-process-data images --data ./images --output-dir ./scan
# 2) Start Gaussian Splatting training
ns-train splatfacto --data ./scan
# 3) View the result in the web viewer and export as .ply
ns-viewer --load-config ./outputs/.../config.ymlCommands for orientation — for exact options see the official Nerfstudio docs. For camera poses without a framework, use COLMAP directly.
6. Hardware requirements
No suitable PC? Then the route goes via on-device apps (Scaniverse computes on the phone), cloud services (Luma AI) or experimental, platform-independent tools like Brush (runs on AMD/Apple and in the browser, among others, but still young). Postshot requires at least an NVIDIA card of the RTX 2060 class (Compute Capability 7.5+).
7. Formats, viewers & Blender
The most important formats
| Format | Size | Use |
|---|---|---|
.ply | large (uncompressed) | Standard raw output of training, universally readable. |
.splat | ~4–6× smaller | Simple, compact web format. |
.spz | ~10× smaller | Niantic's "Splat Zip", keeps full spherical harmonics, MIT license. The Scaniverse standard. |
.sog | ~95% smaller | SuperSplat format, maximum compression, fast web decoding. |
Since 2025, the Khronos Group has been standardizing two glTF extensions (KHR_gaussian_splatting plus SPZ compression). Splats are thus growing into the glTF/web ecosystem.
Viewing & cleaning up: SuperSplat
SuperSplat (PlayCanvas, free, in the browser) is the Swiss Army knife: load a splat, remove floaters with box/sphere/brush, crop the scene, adjust the opacity/scale of individual Gaussians and export as PLY/SPLAT/SOG.
Working on in Blender
For compositing with classic 3D assets there's the free, open-source add-on "3DGS Render" by KIRI Engine (currently v5.x). With it you import, edit and render splats in Blender — the latest version even supports animated splat sequences (4DGS).
Quick Checklist
- First test: Scaniverse on your phone — free, on-device
- Capture: move slowly, constant light, all angles, nothing moves
- Desktop entry: Postshot (Windows, GUI, free)
- Pro control: Nerfstudio (splatfacto) — needs an NVIDIA GPU/CUDA
- Cleanup: remove floaters in SuperSplat and crop
- Compressed export: SPZ or SOG instead of a huge PLY