GoKawiilis a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.
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Imagine Google Street View, except you can walk around like it’s a video game. Now imagine you don’t need to wait for Google to come film because it’s completely DIY. Insta360, the leading maker of 360-degree cameras, is now partnered with a 12-person UK startup called Splatica to help creators do just that.
Last January, we wrote about Gaussian splatting, the tech that promises to someday let anyone digitally recreate chunks of the real world in photorealistic 3D. But Splatica is making it surprisingly easy to harness splats today — with nothing more than an off-the-shelf consumer 360-degree camera and a subscription service that handles everything else.
This is not a video. This is a 3D digital recreation of my backyard that I can explore like a video game level. Video by Sean Hollister / The Verge
When I say “surprisingly easy,” I mean it — this is all I had to do:
Change two settings on an off-the-shelf Insta360 camera or Antigravity drone
Record a video while walking (or flying) around the area
Sign up for a Splatica account and upload the video
Wait a day for a miniature 3D world to appear in my web browser
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