Knowledge base · from our own projects
3D scanning and Gaussian splatting
3D scanning turns an existing object into a digital 3D model. For product presentation two routes are common, photogrammetry or Gaussian splatting from photo and video, or rebuilding the model from CAD data. Gaussian splatting gives the most realistic result, but does not produce a model you can break apart into variants.
A scan is not a goal but a raw material. The question that decides the technique is not how beautiful the scan is, but what has to happen to it afterwards, only being shown, or also being configured, adjusted and taken into production.
Scan or model
Scanning is fast and cheap for existing objects you only want to show. For a configurator you almost always need a built model, because individual parts have to be controllable separately. A scanned mesh is one whole and will not come apart into variants.
That distinction decides the entire budget. A scan of an existing object delivers imagery within a day that nobody doubts, but afterwards you cannot change anything about it. A built model costs more up front and pays for itself the moment a second version comes along, because that one then costs next to nothing.
The three routes, and when each one wins
Photogrammetry builds a mesh from dozens to hundreds of photographs. You get geometry plus texture, and the result can be edited. It works well on objects with structure and matte surfaces, and badly on glass, chrome and flat black, because there the algorithm has no reference points.
Gaussian splatting does not capture a mesh but a cloud of millions of small, translucent specks that together reproduce the light of the scene. Reflections, transparency and soft edges therefore look lifelike, better than a mesh can manage. The price is that you have no parts. It is one block, and you cannot lift a variant out of it.
Rebuilding from CAD uses the drawing that usually already exists. That gives dimensionally accurate geometry in which every part exists separately, and it is the only route a configurator can really handle. It is also the route in which a fault in the source data becomes visible immediately, which feels annoying but is useful.
Where the quality limit lies
A scan is never better than what the camera saw. Undercuts, mirrored metal and thin wires drop out or turn into noise. THE REAL MAG. does not solve that with more scanning but by rebuilding the geometry in those places, and using the scan for what it does do well, the shape and the feel of the real object.
What it costs and what we run ourselves
The individual 3D models that come out of this work THE REAL MAG. charges from 10 euro each, depending on volume and complexity. That low figure exists because we have automated the repetitive steps ourselves; the handwork that remains is the judgement about quality. On a bathroom configurator the price per product dropped 45 percent once we took that handwork out.
What you will find here
The techniques side by side, with what they cost and where their quality limit lies.