Photogrammetry vs Gaussian Splatting for Virtual Reality

What’s better for viewing real life VR environments?
I give my thoughts on this and compare how either feels in VR.

You can download my Gaussian Splats and view them in VR yourself!

Links discussed in video:

[Puffycheeks]

If you don't want to listen to me ramble and just want to look at the comparisons here are the timestamps:
02:22 - Back to back comparison
08:07 - Side to side comparison
13:15 - Quick splat vs lengthy photogrammetry

[poloo]

Excatly what i was looking for, incredible for capturing spatial memories

[LemonsRage]

15:12 Never thought about it. Gaussian Splattering could "bring back" a loved one who passed away. Only for a short moment where you are only watching a still frame of the person but the possibilites are immesurable.

[fitzladams]

Thank you! Have a great Christmas and a prosperous New Year. I have downloaded your examples looking forward to playing with them.

[AnnasGamingCorner]

this is so interesting because i was interested in bringing 3d scans into one of my fave games as mods but other modders told me "its too many tris its impossible" but then here you are running it in vr which is suually even more demanding. I am wishing i can bring stuff like this in game.

[simpson]

i could see google doing this with street view

[SpicyMelonYT]

its really cool that there is audio. I assume captured audio from the location. But even if its created from stock footage or something it still adds a lot!

[AerialWaviator]

This is so fascinating. Curious how file sizes, or storage requirements vary between skinned photogrammetry meshes and gaussian splatting.
I can almost see a mix of both being used. Photogrammetry for general environment at some distance, with gaussian splatting for closer stuff. Thanks for sharing this very well done introduction to both with the comparisons. Has me exciting, and wanting to dig deeper.

[hanskarlsson]

Great stuff, I think we will mix technologies to get the best of all worlds for the forseeable future

[TobyJWalter]

I find this incredibly interesting and awesome.

[CASAROME]

Can't seem to figure out how you were able to use your Luma splats in Gracia, just puts me in a black void everytime..

[BOLL]

I was unaware that the splats change their properties depending on the direction we view them from, that explains a lot of how specular highlights can change, and how reflections can work. Google did this in their Lightfield demo by 3D reconstruction and from what I could tell texture swapping. Kind of disappointing as it kind of removes some of the magic, but made sense at the time. That technique also suffered badly from being limited to the 1m sphere of their camera array.

If I could take a video of my apartment and, as you said, port it into VR Chat, I would do that in a heartbeat to get my international friends to visit... on location, as it were. I very much look forward to this technology maturing, so we will have neat GUI applications to generate and export these environments. Also, I have completely forgotten to look at this myself, while I've watched videos and tutorials for a while now. Thanks for sharing!

[SpicyMelonYT]

If you ever showcase this again, it would be awesome if you could clip away all the flickery and large spats. Only keeping refined areas. Like perfection in a black void!

[ochjoo]

Especially grass i found to be insanely good in gaussian splatting. they just need to figure out how to compress and the ability to stream the data so you can have better scene sizes

[nobody_there_]

Hi, very nice, do you have somewhere online a VR build demo, that we could visit ? cheers

[aaronodum]

Thank you for the explanations.

What kind of LIDAR machine would get the results shown in the bridge scene at the beginning?

[jayanthk]

How to export this into quest 2 ? What engine to use ? And what sdk to use? Can you please explain? I am interested to try this. This is awesome..😊

[apoage]

The biggest problem of nerfs and gaussian splats i see their lack of editability like it's like capturing hologram it looks great but for world construction pacticulary for games it seems really hard to use..

[DesignDebtClub]

It’s Melbourne! Gaussian Splat let me recognise Eureka tower!

[nobody_there_]

The mountains are splatt ? or photogrammetry ?