The Rise of Gaussian Splatting in Real Estate

For most of the past decade, photorealistic 3D property tours meant one thing: LiDAR hardware, specialist operators, and invoices that started at $500 per scan. Gaussian splatting is changing all of that.

What is Gaussian Splatting?

Gaussian splatting is a scene representation technique that models a 3D environment as a collection of 3D Gaussian functions rather than polygons or point clouds. The result is a scene that renders at real-time frame rates in a browser — with photographic fidelity that traditional mesh-based pipelines can't match at the same file size.

Critically, the capture process requires nothing more than a video walkthrough of a space. A modern smartphone at 4K/60fps provides more than enough input data for a high-quality splat.

Why Real Estate?

Property is fundamentally spatial. A buyer's decision to view — and ultimately to offer — depends almost entirely on their ability to visualise themselves inside a space. Flat photography has always been a poor proxy for that experience.

"We went from sending buyers blurry JPEGs to giving them a first-person walkthrough they could share with their partner on a different continent. Brouse changed how we list." — Marcus Vance, Apex Realty

The Workflow Shift

Agencies using Gaussian splatting via Brouse are completing captures in under 10 minutes per property. The scan uploads automatically to the Workspace, where it's processed and published — typically within the hour. The resulting tour is embedded via a responsive iframe into the agency's listing portal.

Compare this to the traditional pipeline: book a specialist photographer (2-3 day lead time), receive raw files (1-2 days), edit and export (1 day), upload to a separate hosting platform, generate embed code. A process that used to take a week now takes an afternoon.

What's Next

The Gaussian splatting ecosystem is moving fast. We're already testing outdoor scene capture for neighbourhood walkthroughs, and our research team is exploring real-time collaborative walkthroughs — where two remote buyers can tour the same space simultaneously.