Bentley iTwin Adds 3D Tiles and SPZ Export for Gaussian Splatting

Bentley Systems has expanded its support for radiance field pipelines with two new export formats for gaussian splatting in iTwin Capture Modeler: 3D Tiles and Niantic’s SPZ. The update gives users more flexibility in how they share and deploy gaussian splatting, particularly in web based or lightweight applications where efficiency matters.

The 3D Tiles export is experimental and currently omits level of detail (LOD) management, but it’s already proving useful for teams working inside the OGC ecosystem. Because splats render as continuous volumes rather than polygon meshes, even LOD free exports hold up surprisingly well, offering fluid navigation and clean visualization of complex geometry like utility infrastructure or dense urban sites. SPZ, on the other hand, brings much stronger file compression from the Niantic team.

Neither format is meant to replace iTwin’s internal editing tools or mesh outputs. Instead, they extend the utility of splats beyond Bentley’s own viewer, opening the door to smoother handoffs between teams and better performance in environments where storage and rendering speed are at a premium.

Support for both exports lives in the same Production interface that introduced Gaussian Splatting earlier this year. With just a few clicks, users can now toggle between local visualization, fine tuning edits, or external delivery, all from the same base dataset.

As radiance field workflows mature, these export paths mark an important step to making the files portable in professional environments. Learn more from the Bentley website here.