Open3D has released v0.20.0, which adds 3D Gaussian splat rendering to its interactive and offscreen views. Open3D, the open source library for point clouds, meshes and 3D reconstruction, did not previously include a renderer for gaussian splatting content. Version 0.20.0 loads splats into tensor point clouds from Gaussian PLY, binary SPLAT, and compressed SPZ files, the format Niantic's Scaniverse team open sourced in late 2024.
Open3D renders splats through a GPU compute pipeline that projects, sorts, and composites them into a color image alongside triangle meshes drawn by Filament, with per splat depth occlusion against the mesh geometry. The same scene can mix splats with regular PBR meshes. The renderer supports anti-aliasing, depth output, and offscreen rendering through the OffscreenRenderer class.
Splat rendering runs on Vulkan on Linux and Windows and on Metal on macOS. The OpenGL renderer is not supported. MSAA is disabled for splat views, and a Gaussian anti-aliasing option takes its place.
The v0.20.0 release notes list several known issues. Windows machines with an Intel Arc A770m are known to hang when displaying splats. Very large or close splats can exceed tile limits and be culled, and dense scenes can drop tile entries once they reach their configured capacity. Open3D also advises against a general 4x4 Transform() on anisotropic splats. Translate, Scale, and Rotate keep positions, covariance orientation, and view dependent coefficients consistent. The notes do not mention splat training or state which spherical harmonic degrees the renderer evaluates.
The Open3D Viewer is available through the Microsoft Store on Windows, with file associations for .splat and .spz. Elsewhere in the release, the SYCL backend for Intel GPUs extends to nearest neighbor search, ICP registration, TSDF reconstruction, and raycasting. The standard Python wheel is about 335 MB smaller, wheels cover Python 3.10 through 3.14, and USD and USDZ import arrives as an experimental feature. macOS x86_64 builds are discontinued.
