Is Convex Splatting the New Gaussian Splatting?

By now you’ve probably heard of Gaussian Splatting, the fast and detailed method of rendering 3D scenes using many small, soft ellipsoids called “Gaussians”. Gaussian Splatting (also known as 3DGS) is often used in reconstructing 3D scenes from photographs and video, and is excellent at representing view-dependent qualities such as specularity. We’ve covered developments in this technology a few times on the blog, as well as its potential use within the VFX industry. 

An example of 3DGS, in the zoomed in image we can see the individual Gaussians

Well, now there’s a whole kind of splatting on the scene! ‘Convex Splatting’ uses smooth convex shapes to build its representation of 3D geometry and radiance fields. The researchers behind this approach claim that Convex Splatting improves on what 3DGS offers by being more capable of tackling sharp edges and fine details while maintaining high rendering speeds. The project page has a detailed breakdown of the approach and is full of examples of what Convex Splatting can achieve. Be sure to check out their presentation video too. 

The last 18 months or so have seen a lot of interest in 3DGS, with developers working to build support into various software such as Unreal, Houdini and Maya, as well as develop services that can build 3DGS based on phone photos. The question is; will Convex Splatting see the same levels of interest and ultimately replace 3DGS in the same way that 3DGS replaced Neural Radiance Fields in many applications? In any case, it’s great to see this emerging area of computer graphics continue to evolve.