A practical guide · Gaussian splatting
How to turn a Gaussian splat into an interactive web experience
A practical guide to shaping a 3D capture into a story or tour: plan the journey, add context, test on phones, and publish something people can use.
A scan gives you a place to explore. A finished experience gives people a reason to explore it. I built StorySplat to help creators add that journey: views, context, sound, and useful interactions. This guide covers the decisions around the tools, from the first brief to the public link.
Start with what the visitor needs
Write one sentence that explains what someone should understand or be able to do after exploring. A venue tour might help a visitor choose a room. A reported story might explain how a place has changed. That decision tells you which views, details, and controls belong in the experience.
For a first version, choose one scene, a short route, and a clear next step. Write a plain-language introduction before you open the editor. Someone should know why this place matters without having to figure out the camera controls.
Leave this step with: A brief: audience, purpose, opening view, and next action.
Choose a capture that supports the journey
Gaussian splatting represents a scene with many small, overlapping 3D shapes whose colors and transparency combine into an image. A capture can look lifelike from familiar viewpoints, but it does not guarantee a complete or accurate model of everything in the space.
Inspect the views your visitor will actually see. Look for gaps, stray fragments, blur, and distractions. Moving subjects and reflective or transparent surfaces can be difficult to reconstruct. If a critical view is missing, recapture it or explain the limitation instead of sending visitors through it.
Keep the original capture. Make a separate working copy for cleaning up the scene and reducing its size, and check that your capture tool exports a format your chosen viewer can open.
Leave this step with: A usable source capture, an untouched original, and a list of missing views.
Make the scene manageable on a phone
A large scene that runs well on your computer may struggle on a visitor’s phone. Try a small publishable version early. Remove distracting fragments and unnecessary surroundings, then compare a lighter export with the original from the same camera positions.
Measure both the downloaded file size and the time until a visitor can start exploring. A smaller download does not necessarily mean smooth interaction: the scene, viewer, and device all matter. Record the device, browser, and connection used for each test. There is no single file-size target that works for every project.
Leave this step with: A tested export with recorded loading and interaction results.
Give people a clear way through
Start from a view that establishes where the visitor is. Add a few deliberate stops, each answering a question or revealing something useful. Preview the movement between them: passing through a wall or cutting too close to an object can make the space hard to understand.
For example, a small gallery tour could begin at the entrance, move to one artwork, and finish with the artist’s account of making it. That is a suggested structure, not a requirement to animate every view. Let people pause, return to an earlier stop, and find the next step without guessing.
Leave this step with: An opening, a short sequence of meaningful views, and a clear ending.
Add the story around the scan
A hotspot is a clickable point that opens information about something in the scene. Use it where a visitor naturally has a question. Give it a descriptive label, and keep the answer focused. Text, a photograph, a voice recording, or a short video can supply context the capture alone cannot provide.
In StorySplat, you can arrange camera waypoints (stops along the tour) and add narration and hotspots with text, images, video, or links. Build and preview the tour in a desktop browser. Keep essential information available as readable page text as well, and provide captions or a transcript for spoken material.
Leave this step with: Short, purposeful annotations with accessible alternatives to audio and video.
Test the experience with someone new to it
Send a draft to someone who has not used your editor. Ask them to find one detail and explain what the experience is about. Watch where they hesitate. If they miss the story because they are learning the controls, simplify the first screen and the route.
Check a smaller phone, a desktop browser, and a slower connection. Test text size, touch targets, keyboard access, visible focus, audio controls, and the ability to avoid unwanted motion. Offer a useful text-and-image version when 3D cannot load or someone prefers to read. These are checks for the whole published page, including anything you embed.
Leave this step with: A short list of observed problems, fixes, and devices checked.
Publish a page that explains what it contains
Give the experience a descriptive title, an introduction, a preview image, and credits. Identify who captured the scene, who built the experience, and who supplied the reporting or media. Include relevant capture dates and explain reconstructions or creative changes when they affect how the scene should be understood.
StorySplat supports a hosted link or an embed, with self-hosted export available on eligible plans. Check the current publishing terms before a client handoff. Test the actual public URL while signed out, including its embeds, media, links, and fallback content. Decide who will maintain the hosting and keep a backup of the project and its assets.
Leave this step with: A working public link, clear credits, and an agreed maintenance plan.
Judge the result by what visitors can do
Return to the purpose you wrote at the start. Can someone identify the room they need, understand the reported event, or find the next step? Collect feedback on that outcome and fix the places where people get stuck.
Where you have suitable analytics, compare starts, completed journeys, useful interactions, and onward visits. Record how you measured them. Engagement can help you improve the experience, but it does not by itself prove that a tour caused a booking or sale.
Leave this step with: An experience you can explain, maintain, and improve using evidence.
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