[0xfffafaCrash]

A splat is basically a point in a point cloud. But instead of a gaussian splat being just a point it isn’t infinitesimally small but like a 3d gaussian where the point represent the mean. It also has color and opacity. You can also stretch it like an ellipsoid instead of having it have perfect radial symmetry.

[mjfisher]

And in case it helps further in the context of the article: traditional rendering pipelines for games don't render fuzzy Gaussian points, but triangles instead.

Having the model trained on how to construct triangles (rather than blobbly points) means that we're closer to a "take photos of a scene, process them automatically, and walk around them in a game engine" style pipeline.

[yazaddaruvala]

Any insights into why game engines prefer triangles rather than guassians for fast rendering?

Are triangles cheaper for the rasterizer, antialiasing, or something similar?

[ragebol]

So instead of a point, a splat is more of a (colored) cloud itself.

So a gaussian splat scene is not a pointcloud but rather a cloudcloud.

[Daub]

> so a gaussian splat scene is not a pointcloud but rather a cloudcloud.

A good way of putting it.