SplatMart Blog

Guides, tutorials and news for 3D Gaussian Splatting.

• We Cut the Splat Editor in Half (2026-07-28) — You told us the editor had too many buttons. We removed 16 of the 41 controls on screen, moved four selection tools to the keyboard, and added two one-click actions that do the jobs people were doing by hand.
• Announcing Leighton 1.0 Free: Gaussian Splatting at No Cost (2026-07-26) — SplatMart now generates Gaussian splats for free. Leighton 1.0 Free runs the same full-budget reconstruction as our flagship paid model, on captures of up to 40 photos, twice a week, with no card required.
• Postshot vs SplatMart (2026): Local GPU or Cloud Leighton? (2026-07-14) — Postshot trains Gaussian splats locally on a Windows PC; SplatMart's Leighton trains them on cloud GPUs from any browser. This honest comparison covers hardware, privacy, inputs, pricing, control, editing, and who each workflow suits.
• KIRI Engine vs SplatMart (2026): Which 3DGS Workflow Fits? (2026-07-14) — KIRI Engine and SplatMart both turn photos or video into Gaussian splats in the cloud, but they serve different workflows. Compare subscriptions, pay-per-generation pricing, input limits, mobile capture, mesh output, editing, and publishing.
• How to Turn a Video into a Gaussian Splat Online (No GPU) (2026-07-14) — Upload a raw video and turn it into a downloadable Gaussian splat without extracting frames or owning an NVIDIA GPU. This guide covers capture technique, cloud processing with Leighton, input limits, pricing, cleanup, and export.
• How to Turn Photos into a 3D Model (2026 Guide) (2026-07-11) — You don't need CAD skills or a gaming PC to turn photos into a 3D model anymore. Here's every way to do it in 2026, phone apps, desktop photogrammetry, and cloud gaussian splatting, plus a step-by-step walkthrough that goes from a folder of photos to a shareable 3D scene in under 20 minutes.
• SplatMart vs Splatware (2026): Gaussian Splatting Platforms Compared (2026-07-11) — SplatMart and Splatware both let you generate, edit, and sell gaussian splats in the browser, so which should you use? An honest side-by-side of pricing models, generation, editors, and marketplaces, including where each platform genuinely wins.
• Leighton: Generate Gaussian Splats Online, No GPU Required (2026-07-11) — Leighton is SplatMart's in-house gaussian splatting generator: upload up to 3,000 photos or a video in your browser and get a trained, downloadable splat back, no CUDA setup, no gaming GPU, no subscription. Small captures are free. Here's how it works, what it costs, and how to get the best results.
• Edit Gaussian Splats in Your Browser: Free Online Splat Editor Guide (2026-07-11) — Floaters, messy bounds, a scene that needs cropping, every raw splat needs cleanup. SplatMart's free browser-based splat editor (built on the SuperSplat engine) handles it without installing anything. Here's a practical walkthrough: loading a .ply, deleting floaters, cropping, and exporting web-ready files.
• How to Hire a 3D Scanning Service (Gaussian Splatting Guide, 2026) (2026-06-17) — Need a photoreal 3D scan but don't want to learn the whole pipeline? Here's how to hire a professional 3D scanning service in 2026, what gaussian splatting changes, what to look for, what it costs, and how to brief a splatter so you get files you can actually use.
• How Much Does 3D Scanning Cost? (2026 Pricing Guide) (2026-06-17) — "How much does 3D scanning cost?" is the question everyone asks first. Here's honest 2026 pricing for gaussian splatting and photogrammetry work, by project type (real estate, product, construction, events), what pushes the price up or down, and how to avoid overpaying.
• Matterport Alternatives: Gaussian Splat 3D Tours for Real Estate (2026-06-17) — Matterport defined the virtual tour, but gaussian splatting now delivers true free-roam, photoreal walkthroughs that often look better for less. Here's an honest comparison for real estate, plus how to hire someone to capture your listing.
• 3D Scanning for Construction: Digital Twins, As-Builts & Progress Capture (2026-06-17) — Gaussian splatting makes site capture fast and photoreal, walkable digital twins, as-built records, and progress documentation from a phone or drone. Here's how construction and AEC teams use it, and how to hire a scanning pro.
• 3D Product Scanning for E-commerce: Photoreal 3D Models That Sell (2026-06-17) — Shoppable 3D and AR product views lift conversion, and gaussian splatting captures real products with real materials far faster than CAD modelling. Here's how 3D product scanning works for online stores, and how to commission it.
• 3D Scanning for Events, Weddings & Venues (Beyond the Photo Booth) (2026-06-17) — From 3D photo booths to full venue and wedding captures, gaussian splatting turns a moment or a space into a photoreal scene people can revisit in their browser. Here's what's possible, and how to hire a splatter for your event.
• Become a Splatter for Hire: Get Paid to Make Gaussian Splats (2026-06-17) — If you can capture clean gaussian splats, people will pay you to scan their listings, products, sites and events. Here's how to turn the skill into paid work, what to charge, how to find clients, and how to get hired on SplatMart.
• Where to Download Gaussian Splats: Free & Paid Sources (2026) (2026-06-11) — Looking for ready-made gaussian splats? Here's an honest rundown of every place to download splat files in 2026, free community galleries, capture-app showcases, and marketplaces, plus what to check before you hit download.
• Does Splat Count Matter? Why More Gaussians ≠ Better Quality (2026-06-11) — It's the first spec everyone looks at, but a 60M-splat scene isn't automatically better than a 5M one. Here's what splat count actually controls, where quality really comes from, and how to pick the right count for web, VR, and offline work.
• The Best 3D Gaussian Splatting Software in 2026: Desktop, Cloud & Mobile (2026-07-19) — The 3DGS tool landscape now spans local desktop trainers, cloud GPU services, phone capture apps, and browser editors. Here are the best options for capturing, training, editing, and viewing Gaussian splats in 2026.
• Gaussian Splatting for Real Estate: Virtual Tours That Actually Feel Like Being There (2026-06-10) — Real estate is the biggest commercial use of gaussian splatting right now. Here's why splat tours beat 360 photos, how the capture-to-web workflow looks, what it costs, and an honest take on when a splat tour is (and isn't) worth it.
• What Is Gaussian Splatting? A Plain-English Guide to 3DGS (2026-06-09) — Gaussian splatting is a way to turn photos or video of a real scene into a photorealistic 3D model you can fly through in real time. Here's how it works, what it's used for, and how it compares to NeRF and photogrammetry.
• NeRF vs Gaussian Splatting: What's the Difference? (2026-06-09) — NeRF and Gaussian splatting both turn photos into 3D scenes, but they work very differently. We break down speed, quality, editability, and when to use each, in plain English.
• Luma AI for Gaussian Splatting: A Capture Guide (2026-06-09) — Luma AI is one of the easiest ways to make a Gaussian splat from your phone. This guide covers capturing, exporting a .splat / .ply file, and getting the cleanest result.
• 4D and 2D Gaussian Splatting Explained (2026-06-08) — Beyond standard 3D splats there's 4D (splats that move over time) and 2D (flat disc primitives for sharper surfaces). Here's what each means and when it matters.
• Best Gaussian Splat Viewers (Web, Desktop & Mobile) (2026-06-07) — How to open and view a .splat or .ply file, the best free web viewers, desktop apps, and engine plugins for Gaussian splats, and how to share them.
• Gaussian Splat File Formats: .ply, .splat, .spz & .sog (2026-06-11) — A practical guide to Gaussian splat file formats, what .ply, .splat, .spz and .sog are, how they differ in size and support, and how to convert between them.
• How to Make a Gaussian Splat: A Step-by-Step Guide (2026-06-05) — Make your first Gaussian splat from a phone video, capture technique, the apps and tools to use, processing, and how to avoid floaters and blur.
• Postshot for Gaussian Splatting: A Quick-Start Guide (2026-06-04) — Postshot is a fast desktop app for training Gaussian splats and NeRFs on your own machine. Here's what it does, who it's for, and how a basic workflow looks.
• Getting Started with 3D Gaussian Splatting: A Beginner's Guide (2025-05-20) — Learn how 3D Gaussian Splatting works, how it differs from NeRF and traditional photogrammetry, and what tools you need to create your first splat.
• Polycam vs. Luma AI: Which Capture App Produces Better Splats? (2025-05-14) — We ran a side-by-side comparison of Polycam Pro and Luma AI across five scene types, architecture, nature, objects, food, and characters. Here's what we found.
• How to Price Your 3DGS Assets: A Seller's Guide (2025-05-07) — Pricing 3D Gaussian Splats is tricky. We analysed 900+ successful listings to find what actually drives sales, and it's not always the lowest price.
• What Makes a Great Splat? 7 Quality Signals Buyers Look For (2026-06-11) — Point density, lighting conditions, movement artefacts, file size, we break down the five things experienced buyers check before purchasing a 3DGS asset.
• Using SplatMart Assets in Unreal Engine 5.4 (2025-04-18) — UE5.4 added native Gaussian Splat support. We walk through importing a .splat file from SplatMart, optimising for real-time performance, and lighting it with Lumen.
• Community Showcase: Best Splats of April 2025 (2025-04-05) — This month we saw incredible architectural captures, forest scapes, and a jaw-dropping Roman ruin series from ArchSplats. Here are our picks.