And that’s why we are building products like Scaniverse 4. With Niantic Scaniverse 4, the power to make and share captivating 3D scans using the latest technology is in everyone’s hands. For free.
Scaniverse 4 uses Gaussian Splats to offer a direct digital 3D representation of the scan targets, down to the finest details including shadows, reflections and texture, and from multiple angles. This is why Gaussian Splats are swiftly becoming the next big thing in photography. They look more realistic than the meshes commonly used for 3D imagery, and surpass other novel technologies like NeRFs (neural radiance fields) in terms of both quality and processing speed.
Splats are composed of millions of fuzzy balls floating in space. Each fuzzy ball has a colour, an opacity (that is, how much light can get through), and a size; the fuzziness is because the colour and opacity fade the further you get from the ball’s centre. This approach makes lighting look much more realistic. On the other hand, meshes use lots of triangles to represent the surface of objects, which makes surfaces look static as your viewing angle changes. One other benefit is that trees, which are notoriously difficult to model in 3D, look much better.
A major innovation from Scaniverse is that you render splats right on your phone, rather than uploading a ton of raw scan data for processing in the cloud. It’s quick and easy to create with an iPhone or Android device. Within five minutes, someone on your team or any visitor can capture a scene from all relevant angles, process the image, and upload it to a shared global map. To go the extra mile, use Niantic Studio, a web-based visual editor and gaming engine, to build immersive XR experiences for customers to anticipate or relive experiences.
Use cases for these tools could include virtual maps of your theme parks, teleporting customers straight to your location right from their phones, personalised virtual tours through museums or even gamified AR extensions to exhibitions. Another benefit is that you can now provide a more inclusive experience for visitors, such as those with hearing impairments.
Our work with Snap Inc. is one example of this technology in action where users can import splats—straight from their phones into Lens Studio, allowing any place, moment, or memory captured to be experienced through their Spectacles glasses.
In addition to using splats as the basis for XR creations, the 3D images themselves are a valuable way for anyone to explore your facility, simply by visiting within the Scaniverse map in app. Blue and white dots on the user’s phone screen indicate 3D images are available for them to explore in immersive detail.
Capturing splats is incredibly simple and users are guided through the process with on screen instructions. When your final Splat is ready, you can save in your library or post publicly to the map. Don’t worry, faces are blurred to protect people’s privacy, this is hugely important to Niantic!
If you’d like to share your splat, just go to your library, select share on the bottom right of your screen and select ‘share link’ or create video. The latter creates a seamless short looping video which is perfect for social media or Whatsapping to friends.
So that gives you further information on Scaniverse 4 and its technology. We believe location based entertainment is a wonderful playground to take advantage of this interesting and playful innovation, and a powerful area to showcase utilising tech to enhance and bring fun into people’s lives.
Images: Copyright Niantic Inc.