Limitations to Using Gaussian Splats in 8th Wall

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Limitations to Using Gaussian Splats in 8th Wall
We’ve been successfully using Scaniverse and KIRI Engine to create Gaussian Splats for our AR projects. Our current AR platform is 8th Wall.

Oddly neither .ply nor .spz can be imported into 8th Wall Cloud Editor, and only .spz can be imported in to Niantic Studio.

It’s great that Niantic has open-sourced .spz, does anyone know if there are any online file converters offering .ply to .spz conversions? Will .ply/.spz be available for 8th Wall Cloud Editor?

Currently 8th Wall only imports .glb files and, as far as I have been able to learn, gaussian splats are only useable in Studio, and only as .spz files (which are compressed .ply files). And, currently, the only way to get a .spz is to do the original GS scan in Scaniverse and export as .spz.

Anyone else having this problem?

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You’re absolutely right that .spz files can only be imported into Niantic Studio, and not editor. This isn’t a bug, though; This limitation is intentional, as the Cloud Editor doesn’t natively support Gaussian Splats the way Niantic Studio does.

As for converting file formats, with the open-sourcing of .spz, it’s likely that online converters will become available in the future. However, at the moment, neither Studio nor the Cloud Editor offers built-in conversion tools for .ply or .spz files.

Tip: If you need to include unsupported files in your project, you can upload them as part of an Asset Bundle.

Hope this helps!

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Thanks George.
Wouldn’t it make sense for Niantic to offer a converter? The converter is already built and lives in the Export Options in Scaniverse. Just as there is a Niantic/Scaniverse Model Viewer? See Model Viewer for ply & spz files.

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Hi There!
This is probably very late for you but here is a converter I’ve used: SPZ/PLY gaussian splat converter

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Hi George! Are both Niantic Studio and Cloud Editor both based on Three js?
If so, would it not be possible to have the same component that renders .spz files in Studio be available for Cloud Editor?

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Thanks for the tip @Lerma_DX.

Never too late for good info. The tech is constantly evolving and our projects are ongoing so I will most definitely check this out.

We’ve had good results using KIRI Engine and exporting the GS as a very detailed glb.

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Yeah! They’re both based on three.js. You can see how we reference three in certain sample projects as well.

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Oh interesting! How does performance compare from GS to GLB? Does it still look pretty good for an environment scene?

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What sample projects are you referencing? I can’t seem to find the scripts in Studio that deal with the .spz files.

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How to access three.js from the window in a Studio project: Studio: Animated Shaders | 8th Wall | 8th Wall (line 12)

SPZ Splat (no custom scripts required): Studio: Splat Playground | 8th Wall | 8th Wall

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The GS to GLB results are great.
Does it still look pretty good for an environment scene? yes.

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