GSOPs Brings Native Gaussian Splatting to TouchDesigner

Lake Heckaman has released GSOPs (Gaussian Splat Operators), a beta custom operator family that makes gaussian splats directly inside TouchDesigner’s node based environment easier than ever. You can load a .ply or .spz, wire it through a chain of operators, and get a live, interactive render that composes with any other TD operator. TouchDesigner is the node based, real time platform widely used for interactive installations and live visual work. GSOPs treats a splat as native scene data. It loads, edits, animates, optimizes, and renders entirely within the network, including a per-point particle system with physics and a shader level effects stack covering bokeh, motion blur, relighting, alpha accumulation, chroma key, and color correction.

The family is organized into IO, Edit, Optimization, Animation, Render, and UI groups. IO covers the Splat Scene, Splat Particles Scene, Load Splat, and Write Splat PLY operators. Edit provides Bounding Box and Convert to ParticleSystem. Optimization provides Frustum Delete, Thin Splat, and Blowout; Render provides Splat Geo and Refractive. Finally the UI provides a Control Panel. The architecture is anchored by a “Splatscene” tag carried on the gsop_splat_scene or gsop_splat_scene_particles generator operators, which acts as the root of a render pipeline. 

Scene dependent operators such as gsop_frustum_delete and gsop_splat_geo reference a Splatscene to know what they are operating on. The usual arrangement is one Splatscene per Render TOP, though many splats can be loaded into a single scene through sequential parameters, positioned and scaled individually, and blended between one another for multi splat compositions. The fastest path in is to drop a GSOP Splat Scene (or Splat Scene Particles), set the splat file path, and click “Init Splat Render Network,” which auto creates a Splat Geo, a GSOP Splat Camera, and a Render TOP.

GSOPs is built on TouchDesigner’s POPs (Point Operators) family. It requires TouchDesigner 2025.32820 or later. Because it runs on POPs, GSOPs sit alongside other POPs operators in the same network, so users can route splats through their own feedback loops and effects. The family is built on TDFam, the open source (Apache 2.0) TouchDesigner operator family framework from Lyell Hintz (dotsimulate) and Dan Molnar (function.str), which handles the scaffolding of distributing and versioning a custom operator family. 

It was built and tested on Windows 11 (Intel i9 14900, RTX 4090 24GB) and also tested on macOS (Apple M3). Frustum Delete culls off screen splats before the render pipeline runs, Thin Splat reduces point count by a percentage, and Blowout adds spacing between splats for either performance or stylistic ends if you’re looking to reduce VRAM. 

Convert to ParticleSystem turns each splat point into a particle governed by physics, so an entire captured scene can dissolve into a point cloud and reassemble. Blending between two loaded splats is available globally, or it can be driven from a texture, letting one part of a scene morph while another holds. The effects stack is applied at the shader level on the splat geometry in real time. 

Alpha Accumulation maps density and overlap to opacity with per-region texture control, whereas Bokeh provides depth of field with adjustable focal length and band width, texture drivable per region, and can optionally be tied to alpha for a slicing or dissection effect through the volume. Motion Blur is true 3D, derived from particle velocity. Relighting is driven by standard TouchDesigner Light COMPs, adding dynamic lighting to captured real world scenes. Color Correction covers hue, saturation, brightness, contrast, gamma, and color temperature. Chroma Key slices splats by color. There is also a Refractive render operator for treating splat geometry as a refracting medium.

This is Heckaman’s second TouchDesigner splat release and a considerable expansion of his earlier TDGS, which first brought Gaussian splatting into TouchDesigner. GSOPs expands it as a full operator family with editing, physics, and a deep effects pipeline. The procedural, operator driven approach echoes how splat tooling is arriving in other DCCs, Gaussian Splat Studio brought procedural splat workflows to Cinema 4D, and node based splat compositing has landed in Nuke, but GSOPs is distinctive in targeting a real time environment built for live performance and installation. 

“GSOPs” is also the name of a well known and entirely unrelated Houdini plugin from CG Nomads (David Rhodes and Ruben Diaz) that we have covered extensively. This TouchDesigner GSOPs is a different product from a different developer, with no relationship between the two.

Several capabilities are on the roadmap and are explicitly listed as in development for a future release: equirectangular 360 rendering, splat deforming, ML-Sharp, and attribute based rendering. Licensing has a free, non-commercial “GSOPs Lite” tier and a paid “Create” tier that includes the full toolkit, a commercial license, and courses. During the beta it is available to Integrate-tier subscribers, with the tier structure set to expand.

TouchDesigner is one of the most incredible platforms and gaussian splatting truly a perfect fit for it. I am so excited for people to begin creating installations, experiences, and taking reality into material that can be deformed, relit, and animated live. GSOPs is available now in beta on Patreon.