VR Planica: Gaussian Splatting Workflows for Immersive Storytelling
Abstract
Gaussian Splatting recently gained a lot of interest for 3D digitization of real-world objects and scenes. Easy-to-use tools are available to professionals, academics, and lay users for 3D asset creation and visualization. However, application in productions such as XR experiences and corresponding workflows have not been studied in detail so far. We present VR Planica, a pioneering experience that applies Gaussian Splatting for immersive storytelling in a journalistic context, where users are immersed into a real environment. We evaluate available tools and present our production workflow. Finally, results of an initial user study are presented.
Keywords:
Gaussian Splatting, Immersive Storytelling, Virtual Reality, 3D Reconstruction, View Synthesis
References
2025. GSOPs. [link]. Accessed: 11 March 2025.
2025. Luma AI. [link]. Accessed: 11 March 2025.
2025. Nerfstudio. [link]. Accessed: 31 March 2025.
2025. Polycam. [link]. Accessed: 11 March 2025.
2025. Postshot. [link]. Accessed: 11 March 2025.
2025. Scaniverse. [link]. Accessed: 31 March 2025.
2025. Supersplat. [link]. Accessed: 31 March 2025.
2025. TRANSMIXR project. [link]. Accessed: 11 March 2025.
2025. Volograms. [link]. Accessed: 11 March 2025.
Anurag Dalal, Daniel Hagen, Kjell G. Robbersmyr, and Kristian Muri Knausgård. 2024. Gaussian Splatting: 3D Reconstruction and Novel View Synthesis: A Review. IEEE Access 12 (2024), 96797–96820. DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3408318
Binbin Huang, Zehao Yu, Anpei Chen, Andreas Geiger, and Shenghua Gao. 2024. 2D Gaussian Splatting for Geometrically Accurate Radiance Fields. In ACM SIGGRAPH 2024 Conference Papers (Denver, CO, USA) (SIGGRAPH ’24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 32, 11 pages. DOI: 10.1145/3641519.3657428
Bernhard Kerbl, Georgios Kopanas, Thomas Leimkuehler, and George Drettakis. 2023. 3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering. ACM Trans. Graph. 42, 4, Article 139 (July 2023), 14 pages. DOI: 10.1145/3592433
Constantin Kleinbeck, Hannah Schieber, Klaus Engel, Ralf Gutjahr, and Daniel Roth. 2025. Multi-Layer Gaussian Splatting for Immersive Anatomy Visualization. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (2025), 1–11. DOI: 10.1109/TVCG.2025.3549882
Kit Yung Lam, Simone Croci, Philipp Haslbauer, and Aljosa Smolic. 2025. VVGLTF: Efficient Streaming of Volumetric Video with GLTF. SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal 134, 1 (2025), 57–63.
Bettina Laugwitz, Theo Held, and Martin Schrepp. 2008. Construction and evaluation of a user experience questionnaire. In Symposium of the Austrian HCI and usability engineering group. Springer, 63–76.
Ben Mildenhall, Pratul P. Srinivasan, Matthew Tancik, Jonathan T. Barron, Ravi Ramamoorthi, and Ren Ng. 2021. NeRF: representing scenes as neural radiance fields for view synthesis. Commun. ACM 65, 1 (Dec. 2021), 99–106. DOI: 10.1145/3503250
A. Pranckevičius. 2025. UnityGaussianSplatting. [link]. Accessed: 31 March 2025.
Martin Schrepp. 2015. User experience questionnaire handbook. All you need to know to apply the UEQ successfully in your project 10 (2015).
Martin Schrepp, Andreas Hinderks, et al. 2017. Design and evaluation of a short version of the user experience questionnaire (UEQ-S). (2017).
Martin Schrepp, Andreas Hinderks, and Jorg Thomaschewski. 2017. Construction of a benchmark for the user experience questionnaire (UEQ). International Journal of Interactive Multimedia and Artificial Intelligence 4, 4 (2017), 40–44.
Aljosa Smolic, Konstantinos Amplianitis, Matthew Moynihan, Neill O’Dwyer, Jan Ondrej, Rafael Pagés, Gareth W. Young, and Emin Zerman. 2022. Volumetric Video Content Creation for Immersive XR Experiences. London Imaging Meeting 3, 1 (2022), 54–54. DOI: 10.2352/lim.2022.1.1.13
Andrej Somrak, Iztok Humar, M Shamim Hossain, Mohammed F Alhamid, M Anwar Hossain, and Jože Guna. 2019. Estimating VR Sickness and user experience using different HMD technologies: An evaluation study. Future Generation Computer Systems 94 (2019), 302–316.
Lee A Westover. 1991. SPLATTING: A Parallel, Feed-Forward Volume Rendering Algorithm. Technical Report. USA.
Matthias Zwicker, Hanspeter Pfister, Jeroen van Baar, and Markus Gross. 2001. Surface splatting. In Proceedings of the 28th Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH ’01). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 371–378. DOI: 10.1145/383259.383300
2025. Luma AI. [link]. Accessed: 11 March 2025.
2025. Nerfstudio. [link]. Accessed: 31 March 2025.
2025. Polycam. [link]. Accessed: 11 March 2025.
2025. Postshot. [link]. Accessed: 11 March 2025.
2025. Scaniverse. [link]. Accessed: 31 March 2025.
2025. Supersplat. [link]. Accessed: 31 March 2025.
2025. TRANSMIXR project. [link]. Accessed: 11 March 2025.
2025. Volograms. [link]. Accessed: 11 March 2025.
Anurag Dalal, Daniel Hagen, Kjell G. Robbersmyr, and Kristian Muri Knausgård. 2024. Gaussian Splatting: 3D Reconstruction and Novel View Synthesis: A Review. IEEE Access 12 (2024), 96797–96820. DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3408318
Binbin Huang, Zehao Yu, Anpei Chen, Andreas Geiger, and Shenghua Gao. 2024. 2D Gaussian Splatting for Geometrically Accurate Radiance Fields. In ACM SIGGRAPH 2024 Conference Papers (Denver, CO, USA) (SIGGRAPH ’24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 32, 11 pages. DOI: 10.1145/3641519.3657428
Bernhard Kerbl, Georgios Kopanas, Thomas Leimkuehler, and George Drettakis. 2023. 3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering. ACM Trans. Graph. 42, 4, Article 139 (July 2023), 14 pages. DOI: 10.1145/3592433
Constantin Kleinbeck, Hannah Schieber, Klaus Engel, Ralf Gutjahr, and Daniel Roth. 2025. Multi-Layer Gaussian Splatting for Immersive Anatomy Visualization. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (2025), 1–11. DOI: 10.1109/TVCG.2025.3549882
Kit Yung Lam, Simone Croci, Philipp Haslbauer, and Aljosa Smolic. 2025. VVGLTF: Efficient Streaming of Volumetric Video with GLTF. SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal 134, 1 (2025), 57–63.
Bettina Laugwitz, Theo Held, and Martin Schrepp. 2008. Construction and evaluation of a user experience questionnaire. In Symposium of the Austrian HCI and usability engineering group. Springer, 63–76.
Ben Mildenhall, Pratul P. Srinivasan, Matthew Tancik, Jonathan T. Barron, Ravi Ramamoorthi, and Ren Ng. 2021. NeRF: representing scenes as neural radiance fields for view synthesis. Commun. ACM 65, 1 (Dec. 2021), 99–106. DOI: 10.1145/3503250
A. Pranckevičius. 2025. UnityGaussianSplatting. [link]. Accessed: 31 March 2025.
Martin Schrepp. 2015. User experience questionnaire handbook. All you need to know to apply the UEQ successfully in your project 10 (2015).
Martin Schrepp, Andreas Hinderks, et al. 2017. Design and evaluation of a short version of the user experience questionnaire (UEQ-S). (2017).
Martin Schrepp, Andreas Hinderks, and Jorg Thomaschewski. 2017. Construction of a benchmark for the user experience questionnaire (UEQ). International Journal of Interactive Multimedia and Artificial Intelligence 4, 4 (2017), 40–44.
Aljosa Smolic, Konstantinos Amplianitis, Matthew Moynihan, Neill O’Dwyer, Jan Ondrej, Rafael Pagés, Gareth W. Young, and Emin Zerman. 2022. Volumetric Video Content Creation for Immersive XR Experiences. London Imaging Meeting 3, 1 (2022), 54–54. DOI: 10.2352/lim.2022.1.1.13
Andrej Somrak, Iztok Humar, M Shamim Hossain, Mohammed F Alhamid, M Anwar Hossain, and Jože Guna. 2019. Estimating VR Sickness and user experience using different HMD technologies: An evaluation study. Future Generation Computer Systems 94 (2019), 302–316.
Lee A Westover. 1991. SPLATTING: A Parallel, Feed-Forward Volume Rendering Algorithm. Technical Report. USA.
Matthias Zwicker, Hanspeter Pfister, Jeroen van Baar, and Markus Gross. 2001. Surface splatting. In Proceedings of the 28th Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH ’01). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 371–378. DOI: 10.1145/383259.383300
Published
2025-06-03
How to Cite
HASLBAUER, Philipp; PULLEN, Mike; PRAPROTNIK, Matej; STIMEC, Sabrina Povsic; HOSPITAL, Marie; GROSBOIS, Alexandre; REICHHERZER, Carolin; SMOLIC, Aljosa.
VR Planica: Gaussian Splatting Workflows for Immersive Storytelling. In: ACM INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INTERACTIVE MEDIA EXPERIENCES WORKSHOPS (IMXW), 25. , 2025, Niterói/RJ.
Anais [...].
Porto Alegre: Sociedade Brasileira de Computação,
2025
.
p. 47-53.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/imxw.2025.8141.
