Over the summer I had followed several tutorials and I thought I could use to use Radiance field methods which would allow me to develop a 3D rendering using the images I took on the site, which in turn I could use as a background for mydesigns to give it a realistic context. Before visiting the site I had the idea of using a drone to capture an orbit video from a greater distance, providing a comprehensive view of the site. Unfortunately, I did not have access to a drone to execute this plan. I therefore decided to look into alternative solutions which would allow me to use photos and/or videos from my iPhone.
Gaussian Splatting is a rasterization technique for 3D reconstruction and rendering, which is still in its beta stage. Because of this I would have to install the plugin manually which meant having to write a significant amount of code which I had never used. This required me to sit through several online tutorials on youtube!
The installation proved to be extremely complicated and time consuming and required several trials and errors. Initially the result was very poor as can be seen Video 1. Greater resolution was achieved with the additional trials/training (Video 2).
Video 1
Video 2
The real-time view allowed me to navigate through the site and observe the surroundings using the built-in controls. The quality was good, although I felt it could be further improved with a higher-quality version.
Unfortunately, the training programme for obtaining a higher quality real-time view of the site crashed after just 2 days of training. As a result, I had to move forward with only the previous real-time view that I had created.
To incorporate my proposal into Unreal Engine, I considered exporting the render using a plugin. However, the high cost of purchasing the Unreal Engine plugin made this option unfeasible. Additionally, I realized that the orbit video I had captured might not have been large enough to accommodate the models.
I decided to try an alternative solution and developed a video from a selection of videos available online. This allowed me to create a much higher quality version.
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