What Gaussian Splatting actually is (no math)
Take 200 photos of a room from every angle. AI converts them into millions of tiny colored blobs floating in 3D space. When you look at the blobs from any angle, they blend together to recreate the room photorealistically. Reflections. Glass. Glossy floors. Stuff that broke every previous 3D scanning method.
It's not photogrammetry. It's not a 360 photo. It's not a Matterport tour. It's a real-time, walkable, photoreal scene that streams to a phone in seconds.
The original research paper dropped in 2023. The open source tools matured in 2024. The phone capture apps got good in 2025. We're at the exact part of the curve where a non-technical person can run circles around an "established" 3D scanning company that paid $40k for a Matterport rig.
PlayCanvas SuperSplat
PlayCanvas open-sourced SuperSplat. A browser-based editor and viewer for Gaussian splat scenes. It runs in your browser. No install. No GPU required for the editing part.
What it does:
- Opens any splat file (PLY, SPLAT, SOG)
- Lets you crop, clean up "floaters" (random ghost blobs), color grade
- Compresses scenes by 70–90% with no visible quality loss
- Publishes a shareable link OR exports a self-hostable HTML viewer
- Generates an MP4 walkthrough as a fallback
It's the missing piece. The capture apps (Polycam, Luma, Postshot) make the splat. SuperSplat makes it deliverable.
The stack from phone to client link
Five steps. That's it.
Total time per property after you've done it twice: under 2 hours including capture.
The money part
Splat Labs (a company already doing this commercially) charges $250–$500 per residential property for basic Gaussian splat tours. Production-grade work starts at $2,250.
Independent freelancers are slotting in between at $300–$800 per scan depending on property size, turnaround speed, whether you include the MP4 walkthrough, and whether you host it for them or hand off the file.
The customers you're not competing for yet:
Pick one. Cold-call ten of them. Offer the first scan at half price for a testimonial. Ten outreach attempts gets you one client. One client gets you the next three through referral.
What you actually need
Hardware:A modern phone. That's it. iPhone 12 Pro or newer if you want LiDAR for faster room captures. Optional gimbal for steady video.
Software: Pick one capture app + SuperSplat (free).
- Polycam: easiest, cloud-based, $150/yr
- Luma AI: free tier is generous, cloud-based
- Postshot: desktop, runs locally, best quality, €17–39/mo
Hosting: Free PlayCanvas account works for public projects. Self-host on any static host for branded delivery.
Total startup cost to get your first paying client: ~$0–$150.
The honest limitations
This isn't measurement-grade scanning. If a client needs exact dimensions for renovation work, they need LiDAR or a survey scanner, not Gaussian splatting.
Reflective surfaces (mirrors, windows, glossy car paint) capture beautifully but sometimes produce weird artifacts. You fix those manually in SuperSplat.
iOS Safari has known issues rendering with WebGPU. Use WebGL2 fallback. SuperSplat handles this for you.
Phone-only captures struggle with featureless white walls and very large rooms. More overlap fixes most of it. Bring more battery than you think you need.
Get the tools running
SuperSplat editor (browser, no install needed):
SuperSplat repo (self-host):
Capture apps:
- Polycam (App Store / Google Play)
- Luma AI (App Store / Google Play)
- Postshot (postshot.com, Windows desktop)
SplatTransform CLI for advanced LOD and self-hosted exports:
All Resources
The window where this is "weird new tech" closes in 12 months. After that it's table stakes and the early operators own the market.
One phone. One weekend. A real business.