MPEG Calls for Dynamic Gaussian Splat Test Material Ahead of a Coding Call for Proposals
Michael Rubloff
MPEG has issued a call for content for Gaussian splat coding, asking for dynamic 3DGS test material by 15 October 2026. MPEG, who creates international standards for digital audio, video, graphics, has turned their attention to 4DGS.
The document is ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 5 N 422, sourced from convenor Jens-Rainer Ohm and approved out of the 155th MPEG meeting in Geneva. MPEG working groups are "currently preparing a Call for Proposals (CfP)" covering coding technology for static and dynamic objects and scenes represented as I-3DGS.
I-3DGS denotes per frame 3DGS content in the original INRIA format. Annex A defines it as a point cloud or point cloud sequence, geometry as Cartesian position and attributes as spherical harmonics, opacity, scale and rotation, with the same count and order for every point. Technology using source views or splat representations other than I-3DGS may be added during CfP preparation.
MPEG seeks I-3DGS material first, with particular interest in dynamic sequences accompanied by source views. Intrinsic and extrinsic calibration in COLMAP format is mandatory where the creation method relies on it, source views are highly desirable, and segmentation masks are recommended for 6DoF object centric material. Priority goes to 6DoF dynamic object centric captures, a person or a non-rigid object, and to 6DoF dynamic scenes such as a sports event or a stage performance, at 25 or 30 fps.
Static submissions should be large scale unbounded navigation datasets carrying roughly 1 million to 100 million splats, and sequences should run at least 5 seconds, preferably 10 seconds or longer, with no scene cuts. The use cases behind the call sit in a companion document, WG 2 N531, spanning telepresence, replay broadcasting, gaming, movie production, BIM, digital twins, GIS visualization, avatar animation and rigging, and semantic grouping with external metadata.
Contributors must clarify copyright, and the license has to let MPEG members prune, resample, change format, test coding algorithms and convert to alternative splat representations. Contributors are also asked to state whether the content may be used to train AI models whose weights may be published, and whether MPEG may share it with cooperating bodies such as JVET. Original content stays in MPEG databases unless the license allows publication.
The Khronos Group took KHR_gaussian_splatting to release candidate in February 2026, an interchange and runtime baseline inside glTF 2.0, and Cesium shipped the first implementations in CesiumJS 1.139 and Cesium for Unreal v2.23.0. MPEG is working the compression layer, with an anchor representation and a competitive proposal process.
Patrice Rondao Alface of Nokia and Ralf Schaefer of InterDigital are named as the contacts. The foundations for a new imaging medium continue to be laid in front of us.
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