Sutro Tower Gaussian Splat
Creative
3d visualization
SHOW HN2025
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Sutro Tower Gaussian Splat
Immersive Gaussian Splat experience of Sutro Tower, San Francisco
vincentwoo.com825points
193comments
#25of 3,837 in 2025
Top 1%of 2025 by points
How HN took it
MixedNo clear lean
37 positive, 23 neutral or asking, 6 mixed, 11 critical, out of 77 comments about the project. Thread score +0.35.
Design: 12 for, 3 againstExecution: 5 for, 5 againstIdea: 8 for, 0 againstPerformance: 5 for, 3 againstDocs: 2 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Photorealistic and beautiful rendering
From 3 comments
Fantastic work. This is one of the best gaussian splats I've experienced. Especially in regards to the distant objects and sky. I was surprised at how many more details I could…
michaeloder on HNThe fidelity is amazing !
whatever1 on HNwow, this is wonderfully made
mcstempel on HN
Nostalgic feel of the city
From 2 comments
Beautiful, the visuals combined with the music gave me quite a nostalgic feeling for the city where I once worked daily but haven't visited in years.
FlamingMoe on HNVery beautiful and nostalgic, so well done. I used to live nearby and my favorite “urban” hike was going up Glen Canyon, up and down the two Twin Peaks, loop through Sutro Forest…
deanmoriarty on HN
Runs fast and looks good on modest hardware
From 1 comment
Not only does it look amazing, it renders super fast even on an iGPU. Feels like magic. A couple of questions: Why do objects flicker when moving the camera? And why do surfaces…
jcarrano on HN
Objections
Heavy performance load, low frame rate on VR headsets and phones
From 4 comments
Amazing. I tried it on my MQ3 last night and it was the first thing like that which was photorealistic, but it badly overloaded the MQ3, so it was the closest experience to Sword…
PaulHoule on HNThis brings a meta quest 3s to its knees. It's almost so bad you can't quit it, and the video lags 15 seconds, which is very disorienting to be immersed in (it can make you fall…
cloudfudge on HN30 MB! Very cool! It runs about 0.5 FPS on my iGPU but alas... good work anyway
01HNNWZ0MV43FF on HNBeautiful. Slow on my phone, but it is doing alot!
aqueueaqueue on HN
Controls are not mobile friendly
From 3 comments
Sadly the controls are not mobile friendly and I ended up spinning wildly.
Lorin on HNThis does not work at all on Android Chrome. The about dialog flies in super slowly, continually re-layouting the text, and there's no "small cube" and no way to dismiss the…
IshKebab on HNThe help text mentions a "little cube" that would enable AR mode, but I can see no cube. Touch controls are very weird and don't rotate the view as expected.
desdenova on HN
Fails to load on some mobile browsers
From 2 comments
It doesn't seem to load on Android Chrome or Firefox. Maybe a hug of death?
ghfhghg on HNUncaught SyntaxError: import assertions are not currently supported
slater on HN
Requests
Mouse look support
From 1 comment
This is great but please implement mouse look! It makes it way more immersive and is the lingua franca of FPS interactions.
keepamovin on HN
Filter out needle-like artifacts far from tower
From 1 comment
I wasn't expecting to be able to see through the lattice structure. Amazing amount of detail. Naively, it seems to me that the many needle-like artifacts further away from the…
Luc on HN
Convert splat to 3D model
From 1 comment
It's really cool, but I can't shake off an "uncanny valley" feeling, with all of the small quirks in the geometry. What I think I'd be interested in is a post-processing step…
falcor84 on HN
Questions
How to create splats yourself and the decoder used
From 2 comments
Wow! I'd love to read a more in-depth blog post describing how to create one of these myself, and maybe even contribute my own splats to a collaborative library for iconic…
Samin100 on HNThis is fantastic. I've been trying to build something myself for biological and heritage captures. Could you elaborate at all on the JS decoder method used or resources that…
amgee on HN
Source of images used
From 1 comment
Can we see the images it was made with
pinoy420 on HN
Why objects flicker and surfaces go translucent
From 1 comment
Not only does it look amazing, it renders super fast even on an iGPU. Feels like magic. A couple of questions: Why do objects flicker when moving the camera? And why do surfaces…
jcarrano on HN
Alternatives named
Google Earth
From 1 comment
This is very cool. I feel like the technique used (gaussian splatting) gives it a more realistic appearance from certain viewpoints. It almost felt like my monitor turned into a…
accrual on HN
Inside the Scaniverse
From 1 comment
Amazing. I tried it on my MQ3 last night and it was the first thing like that which was photorealistic, but it badly overloaded the MQ3, so it was the closest experience to Sword…
PaulHoule on HN
Microsoft Photosynth
From 1 comment
This is great! Back in 2009 or so, I took dozens of high-resolution photos with my digital camera from the observation spot at Sutro Tower (towards the city, not the tower), and…
bastawhiz on HN