Guide
What Is a 3D Gaussian Splat Tour?
Updated
A 3D Gaussian splat tour is an interactive 3D copy of a real room, rebuilt from an ordinary phone video or a set of photos and viewed in a web browser. Software works out where the camera was in each frame, then fills the space with many small, soft, coloured shapes called Gaussians that together look like the real room. Unlike a 360 photo tour, viewers can move between viewpoints instead of only turning on the spot, and unlike a LiDAR or Matterport-style scan, no special camera is needed. WalkTortoise makes one from a phone video of each room.
How a Gaussian splat is made
A Gaussian splat starts as an ordinary video. WalkTortoise pulls still frames from the clip, sets aside the blurred ones, and works out where the camera stood and which way it pointed in each frame. That only works when the camera moved sideways through the room, because depth comes from seeing the same object from slightly different positions.
A training step then places a large number of small, semi-transparent, coloured shapes (the Gaussians, often called splats) in 3D and adjusts them until they reproduce the frames. A healthy room scan holds more than 100,000 of them. The result is a scene file that a web browser can draw from new angles in real time.
How it differs from a 360 photo tour
A 360 photo tour is a set of panoramic photos taken from fixed spots. From each spot you can look all the way around, then jump to the next. You never see the room from the positions in between, so nearby objects never shift against the background as they do when you walk.
A splat tour is a reconstruction in 3D, so the view changes smoothly as you move and depth looks natural. The trade-off: it is only sharp where the camera actually went. Areas the phone never saw, such as the space behind a sofa, come out blurred or missing.
How it differs from LiDAR and Matterport-style scans
LiDAR and Matterport-style systems capture depth with a dedicated 3D camera or sensor, usually on a tripod moved from point to point by a trained operator. Because they measure depth directly, they suit jobs where measurements or floor plans matter.
A Gaussian splat is built from ordinary images, so the phone in your pocket is enough. It is a visual record rather than a measured survey: WalkTortoise does not produce measurements or floor plans.
What a viewer can do
Each WalkTortoise room gets a share page that opens in any web browser, with no app and no login. Depending on what is ready for that room, viewers get:
- Fly-through: a smooth video that glides along the path you filmed. It plays straight away on any device.
- Interactive 3D: walk with the WASD or arrow keys or an on-screen pad, drag to look around, tap waypoint dots to glide to filmed viewpoints, replay the recorded walkthrough, or use the auto-orbiting Showcase mode.
- Original: the recording the scene was made from.
- Download MP4: a copy of the fly-through video.
- In a property tour: a strip of room thumbnails, plus pins inside the 3D view that lead to the next and previous room.
What it is good for, and what it is not
Splat tours suit sales listings, rentals and holiday lets where the feel of a space matters: light, finishes and depth. Buyers and guests can explore on their own time, and the same capture gives you a video for listings and social media.
They are a weaker fit when you need:
- Exact measurements or a floor plan.
- Rooms dominated by mirrors, large panes of glass or plain blank walls, which are hard to reconstruct.
- A whole house in one take. Each WalkTortoise capture is one room, up to 60 seconds on a regular account, and a property tour groups the rooms.
- Instant viewing on a slow connection. The interactive 3D is a large download, so the share page leads with the fly-through.
Common questions
- Do viewers need an app or an account to open a splat tour?
- No. WalkTortoise share links open in a normal web browser on a phone or a computer, and no login is needed.
- Is a Gaussian splat the same as a 3D mesh?
- No. A mesh is a surface built from triangles. A splat is a cloud of soft, coloured shapes that looks photographic when drawn, but it is not meant for measuring or editing the geometry.
- Can viewers see parts of the room that were not filmed?
- Not clearly. A splat only knows what the camera saw, so unfilmed areas look blurred or empty. For that reason, the WalkTortoise viewer stops you walking out of the captured area.
- Does a splat tour work on a phone?
- Yes. The fly-through video plays on any device, and the interactive 3D works on phones with an on-screen arrow pad. Because the 3D scene is a large download, it runs best on a desktop or over Wi-Fi.
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