12 Real Gaussian Splatting Examples You Can Fly Through in Your Browser
Most gaussian splatting examples are screenshots or YouTube clips. These 12 are live 3DGS models — real Australian sites, streamed from our own infrastructure, flyable in any browser with no install. Here's the guided tour, scene by scene.
You can read ten articles about gaussian splatting and still have no idea what it feels like. So we did something different. Every example below is a live 3D gaussian splatting model — a real Australian site, streamed from our own infrastructure, open in any browser, no install, no plugin. Click in, then fly through it like a video game. That's the whole pitch. This article is the guided tour of the live gallery: 12 scenes, what each one is, and what to look for while you're inside.
A quick word on why this matters. Most "gaussian splatting examples" content on the internet is screenshots or rendered video. Both hide the failure modes. A screenshot proves one good frame. A video proves one good camera path. A live 3DGS viewer proves the whole scene holds up from any angle you choose — which is the only test that matters if you're going to use this for real work.
A screenshot proves one good frame. A live model you can fly through proves the whole scene.
Thirty seconds on what you're actually looking at
3D gaussian splatting (3DGS) came out of SIGGRAPH 2023. Instead of a mesh or a photogrammetry surface, the scene is rebuilt from millions of tiny coloured gaussians that render view-dependent detail — reflections, thin steel, vegetation, glossy surfaces — the things that make traditional photogrammetry fall over. We pair it with LiDAR capture so the models are measurable, not just pretty. If you want the deeper technical explanation, our 3DGS modelling service page covers the workflow. For now: open a scene and start moving.
The tour: 12 scenes in six stops
1–3. Mooloolaba Seawall — one asset, three dated captures
This is the group we show engineers first. Three separate captures of the same Sunshine Coast Council seawall: 5 April during early works, 13 April immediately post-pour, and 20 May near completion. Same asset, three dates — a 4D construction progress record you can stand inside. Fly to the same spot in each model and watch formwork become fresh concrete become finished wall. What to look for: pick a fixed reference — a joint, a corner, a service pit — and jump between the three scenes in the gallery. That's the difference between a progress photo and a progress model. Who needs this: superintendents, project engineers and councils who argue about progress claims, ITP evidence and as-built condition. A dated, flyable capture ends most of those arguments before they start. See our broader capability statement for how this slots into infrastructure delivery.
4. Moffat Beach Seawall Path — coastal works in context
Another Sunshine Coast coastal protection job, this one showing the finished pathway along the seawall. Coastal assets are a brutal capture environment — sand, glare, water, irregular rock. What to look for: the rock armour texture and the transition between path, wall and beach. Photogrammetry typically smears this into porridge; the splat model holds the individual rocks. Who needs this: coastal engineers and council asset managers doing condition assessment on assets that erode between inspections. Open it from the live gallery and get low to the rock face.
5. Queensland Steel Structure Bridge — the thin-structure stress test
Steel lattice is where most reality capture goes to die. Thin members, repeated geometry, sky behind everything — classic photogrammetry produces floating spaghetti. This Queensland steel bridge is our stress test, and it's in the gallery precisely because it's hard. What to look for: fly along a chord member and check it stays a clean, continuous element from every angle. Look through the lattice at the background — no melting, no ghost geometry. Who needs this: structural inspectors and asset owners who need to see connection details without a rope-access crew. This is the same class of capture we ran on a live corridor for the Gold Coast Highway job — one operator, a single ~10-minute pass on foot, no lane closure.
6–7. Federation Pavilion, Sydney — same site, two devices
This pair is unique in the gallery: the same heritage pavilion captured twice, once with the Lixel K2 and once with the PortalCam. The K2 is a handheld scanner with built-in RTK — under 1cm relative accuracy, dual output of point cloud plus 3DGS, from $15,999 inc GST. The PortalCam is an 870g four-camera 3DGS array at ±2cm relative — no RTK, no point cloud output, from $7,699 inc GST. What to look for: compare the same column, the same dome curve, the same paving in both models. Where does the camera-only capture hold up? Where does LiDAR-backed geometry earn its price difference? Who needs this: anyone deciding which scanner to buy or hire. We could write 2,000 words on K2 versus PortalCam — or you can fly both in the gallery and answer it yourself in five minutes. That's why we captured it twice.
8–11. The heritage set — ANZAC Memorial, Sydney Uni Quadrangle, South Bank temple, Queensland Museum whales
Four scenes for the heritage and cultural sector. The ANZAC Memorial at Hyde Park: fly close to the carved stone and check the relief detail. The University of Sydney Quadrangle: sandstone colour and Gothic revival geometry at campus scale. The Brisbane South Bank temple: ornate painted detail that flat orthophotos never do justice. And the Queensland Museum whale installation: whales suspended in an interior space — an indoor, GPS-denied capture with large curved objects hanging in mid-air, which is about as awkward as capture jobs get. Who needs this: heritage consultants, museums, universities and councils building digital archives of assets that can't be replaced — a fire or a storm cell doesn't wait for your documentation budget. All four are open now in the gallery, and our urban heritage page covers the recording workflow.
12. The Big Banana — yes, really
Coffs Harbour's finest roadside icon, in full 3DGS. We scanned it because glossy curved fibreglass is genuinely difficult — specular surfaces confuse most reconstruction methods, and the splat model handles the highlights rolling across the surface as you move. What to look for: orbit it and watch the sheen. Who needs this: tourism bodies, XR studios, anyone who wants a memorable demo of what the technique does with non-standard geometry. Also, it's a giant banana you can fly around in your browser. Some things don't need a business case.
How to pressure-test any gaussian splatting demo
Whether it's our gallery or anyone else's, run the same five checks. Screenshots can't fake their way past these — only a live viewer can pass them.
- →Get close. Detail should hold within touching distance, not just at hero-shot range.
- →Find thin structures — handrails, steel members, cables — and orbit them. This is where weak captures fall apart.
- →Look at reflective and glossy surfaces from moving viewpoints. View-dependent shading is 3DGS's party trick.
- →Fly to the edge of the scene and look back. Coverage gaps and floaters live at the boundaries.
- →Note the load time. Ours stream fast because LCC compresses models by roughly 90% versus open-source 3DGS output.
How these were captured — and why we host them ourselves
Every scene in the gallery was captured with XGRIDS hardware we distribute and use ourselves: the PortalCam camera array, the Lixel K1 — a 1kg handheld SLAM LiDAR built for GPS-denied work like museum interiors — the Lixel K2, and the Lixel L2 Pro: 640,000 points per second, up to 300m range, drone-mountable for aerial-ground fusion work. Processing runs through LCC, whose patented compression is the reason a full site streams into a browser tab instead of demanding a download. And the hosting is ours: every model is served from AECT's own Australian infrastructure, with capture and processing done onshore in Queensland. For government, police and infrastructure clients, that data sovereignty isn't a footnote — it's the requirement. As XGRIDS National Distributor for Australia, we run the same stack we sell.
The gallery exists so you don't have to take our word for anything — fly the models, then decide. If you want your own site captured, book a pilot capture and we'll scan a real asset of yours. If you'd rather hold the hardware first, hire a scanner — PortalCam $150/day, K2 $250/day inc GST, and under our Demo-to-Buy offer up to 5 days of hire is 100% creditable against a purchase within 90 days. Either way, start at aect.solutions/models. Seeing beats reading.
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