Leighton: Generate Gaussian Splats Online, No GPU Required
Guide · 2026-07-11 · 8 min read · by SplatMart Team
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. Here's how it works, what it costs, and how to get the best results.
Until recently, making a gaussian splat from your own photos or video meant either a phone app (easy, but capped quality) or a desktop training pipeline (powerful, but you need an NVIDIA GPU, CUDA drivers, and patience). Leighton is SplatMart's answer: an online gaussian splatting generator that runs the whole reconstruction in the cloud. You upload up to 3,000 photos or one raw video in the browser, a fleet of enterprise-tier GPUs trains the model, and you download a finished splat, usually in minutes.
What Leighton is
Leighton 1.0 is SplatMart's in-house reconstruction model. It takes up to 3,000 photos or frames sampled from a video, works out camera positions, trains a 3D gaussian splat, and hands you the result, with progress you can watch live. There's nothing to install and no GPU required on your end; if your machine can run a browser, it can make splats. If you're new to the format, read what is gaussian splatting first.
The three tiers
- Leighton 1.0 Lite, $2. A quicker training schedule for previews, drafts, and smaller scenes. Results in minutes.
- Leighton 1.0, $4. The everyday choice: full training budget, automatically scaled to your photo count.
- Leighton 1.0 Max, $6. For large photo sets (big interiors, buildings, dense object rigs) that deserve the full reconstruction budget.
Pricing is per generation, no subscription, no monthly minimum. The $2–$6 model price includes 500 inputs; every started block of 50 above 500 adds 10% of the selected model's base credits and projected time, shown before you generate. For how that compares with subscription platforms, see SplatMart vs Splatware.
How fast is it?
Fast enough to iterate. Leighton runs on the latest enterprise-tier GPUs and scales its training passes to the size of your photo set, so small captures return in a few minutes and even a 430-photo interior finishes in around a quarter of an hour on the standard tier. You watch the job progress live and download the moment it's done.
Getting a good result
The generator can only reconstruct what your photos show, so capture is everything: overlapping frames, full coverage, steady exposure, even light. Aim for 100–200 photos for an object and 300–500 for a space. Our photos to 3D model walkthrough covers the shoot in detail, and how to make a gaussian splat goes deeper on avoiding floaters and blur.
What you get, and what to do with it
Every job delivers an editable .ply you can download, plus a one-click hand-off into SplatMart's free browser splat editor for floater cleanup and cropping. From there: embed it, use it in Unreal or other engines (see the file formats guide), or list it on the marketplace, pricing guide here.
Frequently asked questions
Can I do gaussian splatting online without a GPU?
Yes, that's what cloud generators are for. With SplatMart's Leighton you upload photos or a video in the browser and the training runs on datacentre GPUs, so any laptop works. You download the finished .ply when it's done, usually within minutes.
How much does it cost to generate a gaussian splat online?
On SplatMart, $2 (Leighton 1.0 Lite), $4 (Leighton 1.0), or $6 (Leighton 1.0 Max) per generation, pay-as-you-go with no subscription. Tier choice mostly depends on photo-set size and how much training budget the scene deserves.
How many photos or video frames can I upload?
Up to 3,000 photos or 3,000 sampled video frames per job. The base price includes 500 inputs; every started block of 50 above that adds 10% of the selected model's base credits and projected time, shown before generation.
How long does cloud gaussian splatting take?
The current estimates are about 10 minutes for Leighton 1.0 Lite, 20 minutes for Leighton 1.0, and 25 minutes for Leighton 1.0 Max at the base input allowance. Large jobs add projected time in blocks of 50 inputs, with live progress while training runs.
Is Leighton better than a phone app like Luma or Polycam?
Phone apps are great for casual capture, but a cloud generator has a much bigger compute budget, takes far more photos per job, and gives you the editable .ply. If you care about the result, and especially if you plan to sell it, shoot deliberately and generate in the cloud.
Try it: gather your photos and create a splat with Leighton. First result not clean? Run it through the free editor, most captures just need a 10-minute floater pass.