I’m excited to share this open-source community mashup showing the power and possibility of combining 3D Gaussian splat scans with traditional mesh-based 3D tiles maps in the browser.

As you've probably seen on HN a bunch lately, Gaussian splats are a new method to allow custom 3D scans of scenes and objects [1] and Google Maps 3D Tiles API are the same 3D buildings and street views your familiar with in Google Earth or Google Maps, and recently they’ve been made available for inclusion in web apps.

Combining splats + 3d map mixes highly detailed real-world custom micro-scans with the macro-level 3D imagery from satellite data. This is useful for civil engineering, transportation planning, real estate, construction, creative production, and so much more – we’re just scratching the surface.

Demo1 with manual orbit controls:

- Video: https://twitter.com/kfarr/status/1773934700878561396

- Live Demo: https://maps-and-splats.glitch.me/

- Source: https://glitch.com/edit/#!/maps-and-splats?path=index.html

- Instructions: zoom in / out using scrollwheel and rotate with click and drag

Demo2 with animated camera path timeline:

- Video: https://twitter.com/3dstreetapp/status/1775203540442697782

- Live Demo: https://look-at-splat-maps.glitch.me/

- Source: https://glitch.com/edit/#!/look-at-splat-maps

- Instructions for using timeline to make your own camera flight path: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDWKina45f4

These demos combine: A-Frame / three.js, NYTimes three.js 3DTiles viewer component with Google 3D Tiles, 3DStreet Gaussian splat viewer component from Luma Labs scanned scenes, theatre.js animated camera path and timeline editor, Glitch hosting / IDE because they’re awesome for hacking projects like this

These demos are results of R&D from a larger project: https://3dstreet.org

Some of these API cost real money so I worked to get a temporary quota of 25,000 sessions. After that the 3dtiles won’t load, you’ll need to get your own API key from Google :)

[1] 2 min intro to 3D Gaussian splatting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVv_IQKlafQ