CHCNAV has announced CoMeta, a photogrammetry and radiance field package that generates 3D Gaussian splats from the same aerial triangulation as its orthomosaic, DSM and mesh. One triangulation result feeds all four outputs, and the splat is built inside the survey project from the same solved camera poses.
CoMeta writes 3DGS to .ply and .3dtiles, mesh to .osgb, .3dtiles and .obj, and orthomosaic and DSM to .tif. The .3dtiles path puts a splat into the same streaming tileset format the mesh already ships in, which is what GIS clients and web viewers pull for city scale content. Esri added shadow, slice, line of sight and elevation profile analysis to Gaussian splat layers in ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript 5.1 in June.
CHCNAV's launch announcement is reachable through trade carriers. The announcement also states that the 3DGS workflow can reduce manual model retouching time on water surfaces, glass facades, vegetation and thin structures by more than 70% against the tested conventional mesh refinement workflow.
A single CoMeta project can take more than 100,000 images, which CHCNAV says reduces the need to divide large datasets manually and merge separate results, and distributed processing across 15 or more computing nodes expands capacity further. The functions list covers aerial triangulation with ground control points, 9,910 or more coordinate reference systems, orthomosaic, DSM, mesh, 3DGS and cluster computing.
CHCNAV puts CoMeta at approximately two to three times faster than the mainstream software configurations tested on benchmark datasets, and credits automated batch processing and dual engine computation for the gain. The highlights section of the CoMeta product page states a flat 3 times for aerial triangulation, orthomosaic and mesh processing. A later section of the same page describes that range as reducing overall processing time by more than 50%, which the low end of the range does not reach. Neither figure names a comparison product or a benchmark dataset.
The built in calibration database carries more than 400 camera profiles covering DJI, Sony, Feima, RIY, Saier and other manufacturers, and standard positioning and orientation data can be imported from different acquisition platforms. The workflow is generally three steps, import imagery, choose and process outputs, then review and export, and states that more than 95% of projects complete on default parameters. CoMeta is a Windows desktop application for UAV and aerial imagery, shipping with English, Chinese and Russian interfaces.
CHCNAV positions CoMeta for surveying and mapping, engineering, real scene 3D mapping, infrastructure digitalization, digital twins and urban renewal. Details are available on the CHCNAV product page.
New to Gaussian Splatting? Start here
