Autodesk

Autodesk is treating Gaussian Splatting as a first-class reality capture format for AEC. Their approach combines splats with traditional photogrammetry and laser-scan point clouds, mapping splat scenes into the BIM and digital twin ecosystems alongside Bentley and Esri. The result is faster, cheaper as-built documentation: handheld captures from a job site can be turned into shareable, lightweight splat scenes without tripods or formal setup.

3ds Max 2027.2 makes Gaussian splats an editable native object type, released 22 July 2026, importing PLY, SPZ and LCC into a polymorphic Points object that creates Gaussian Splat, Editable Point and Point Sphere objects, with no third party plugin. It adds the Turn to Point, Point Select and Point Instance modifiers and lets the Array modifier output points. Rendering runs through Arnold for 3ds Max 5.9.3.0, which ships with 3ds Max, and Autodesk says the same splat data also renders in V-Ray and exports as PLY. Arnold 7.5.2 had added splat rendering and relighting through the points node in June, introducing a Gaussian Splat shape node and the gaussian_splat_shader, and MtoA 5.6.2 carried that node into Maya with Viewport 2.0 display as bounding box, point cloud and a 3DGS preview. Arnold 7.5.3.0 with MtoA 5.6.3 followed on 22 July 2026, moving that preview onto the GPU under MTOA-2947 and feeding it spherical harmonic coefficient data under MTOA-2958, so view dependent color and lighting stay accurate while the camera orbits. MtoA 5.6.4, built on Arnold 7.5.4.0, lets any Arnold shader drive a Gaussian splat, with aiStandardSurface and a toon shader as Autodesk's examples, and an aiGaussianSplat with no shader assigned falls back to the built-in Gaussian splat shader so existing scenes render as before.

Recently Autodesk VRED for automotive visualization began supporting gaussian splatting.

For Autodesk's AEC customers, the near-term value of splatting lies in rapid documentation, stakeholder communication, and early-stage visualization. Combined with Trimble survey-grade LiDAR or Esri ArcGIS Reality outputs, splats slot into a hybrid pipeline rather than replacing legacy reality-capture formats.