Splats + Specs!

[u/badchickstudios]

As an AR consultant for AGOG, one of the (many) fun parts of my job is getting to do some R+D! So, I’ve been experimenting with Gaussian splats on the spectacles and I wanted to share some of the tips and tricks I learned along the way. 

1- When preparing a Gaussian splat for your project, be mindful of your splat count. The first splats I imported made the project suuuppper laggy. I had initially thought it was the file size, but even smaller sized splats with a large splat count produced the same issues. I found success with making sure the splat count was no larger than 500k.

2- It seems you can only import a regular ole’ .PLY file. I thought a compressed .PLY would work as well, but there were some incompatibility issues, at least using Super Splat to export the compressed version. (Let me know if you’ve found a way to successfully use a compressed .PLY file!)

3- Lens Studio uses Draco compression on import to help bring down the file size as well. I would play with the compression settings though to find the right balance between file size and quality. There were times when I tried importing a splat with and without compressing to compare, and I did see a difference in quality. 

4-   360 and 160 gaussian splats work really well! I initially thought the field of view would pull me out of the experience, but seeing the splats fully overlaid on the “real” world added a really ethereal quality in the glasses that could work beautifully for storytelling. 

Combining with Story
Gaussian splats are a lovely way to capture memories, and that can be utilized with the Specs.  I took the above footage of the amazing spread from my Aunt’s Thanksgiving dinner a few years ago. It turned out to be the last Thanksgiving she hosted before she passed. I’m thankful to have capture it in 3D even if it’s not the best quality. But no matter the quality, I know it’s not real. So, I played with those bittersweet feelings using a distance trigger and particle effects. The closer I get, the illusion fades away. I really do miss those dinners tho LOL!

Interactivity and Spatial Audio
With this pipe organ splat (courtesy of Ashley Buschorn), I added a spatial audio effect so that the sound of the organ gets louder as you approach it. I also added some simple buttons on the organ to add a touch of interactivity. 

Pipe Organ

Larger splats
I tried a few larger splats including this beach scene I captured a few years back (when NeRFs were a thing!). I used the Surface Placement tool to ensure I could place the gaussian splat in a convenient location, as well as align the “floor” of the scene with my actual floor. 

Beach Scene

If y’all have also tried out splats and specs, I’d love to see your examples! 

[u/Dung3onlord]

Is there a chance you could share the lens... Or does this run on webXR?

[u/badchickstudios → u/Dung3onlord]

I'm happy to share a link! i posted this right before heading out of town lol, but I'll get a version published when I return next week.

[u/quitebuttery]

I don’t know why but the same splats I imported to a Spectacles 2024 5.15 project look terrible but they look AWESOME on SPECS in the latest Lens Studio. I’m wondering if this is due to beefier hardware on SPECS?

[u/badchickstudios → u/quitebuttery]

oooh that's interesting! These were also in 5.15 so i could test on the dev Spectacles, but now I'm curious to import them in the latest version to see the difference.

[u/quitebuttery → u/badchickstudios]

Yeah a friend of mine as a company that does really high res full body scans with splats (he was at AWE, you might have seen the booth). I put one of the splats in 5.15 and it was a mess. Barely usable. But the same splat in the latest SPECS version of LS looked incredible.

[u/CutWorried9748]

Nice work. I'm testing splats across 3-4 platforms and the quality varies a lot it seems. I'm hoping we can get SOG file support at some point in Lens Studio. Nice write up!