LichtFeld Studio

LichtFeld Studio is an open source 3D Gaussian Splatting application started by MrNeRF and licensed GPL-3.0. It trains scenes from COLMAP datasets, resumes from checkpoints, inspects reconstructions in real time, edits gaussian selections and scene nodes with undo and redo, and exports the result, all from a single native desktop application rather than a training script paired with a separate viewer. The repository carries roughly 3,500 stars, 424 forks and more than 2,400 commits, and the project is based in Switzerland.

The application is written in C++23 against CUDA 12.8 or newer and runs only on NVIDIA hardware. It requires a GPU at compute capability 7.5 or newer, which means a GTX 16 series card, an RTX 20 series card or anything later, and a pre-flight check refuses to start on parts below that line. GTX 10 series and older NVIDIA cards, AMD cards and Intel cards are not supported at all. Version 0.5.3 replaced the CUDA renderer with a full Vulkan viewer, which changed how a scene is drawn without loosening the CUDA requirement for training.

Distribution splits by platform. Prebuilt Windows archives come from the Lichtfeld Portal at portal.lichtfeld.io, which asks for registration and a donation and in return serves daily builds alongside tagged releases. Windows is the only prebuilt target. Linux is supported by building from source, with a Dockerfile in the repository and platform notes in the project wiki. The current tag is v0.5.3, and v0.5.2 shipped in April 2026.

Export covers PLY, SOG and SPZ, plus a standalone HTML viewer that packages a scene for sharing without a server. Research facing features include MCMC optimization, bilateral grid appearance modeling, 3DGUT support for distorted camera models, and timelapse generation. The interface has moved off Dear ImGui and from GLFW to SDL3, and headless operation is supported for batch work.

A Python plugin system with a Plugin Manager lets third parties extend the application, and an MCP surface alongside embedded Python exposes the same operations to external scripts and agents. Moshpit360 brought one click 360 video ingestion to the application in May 2026, and Alex Gee's 360 Plugin, licensed GPL-3.0-or-later, adds a six stage pipeline that demuxes DJI .osv and Insta360 .insv containers, masks the camera operator with Meta's SAM 3, and aligns frames through COLMAP 4.1 using native equirectangular and fisheye camera models. That plugin requires LichtFeld Studio 0.5.0 or newer, and its first install pulls roughly 4.2 GB of CUDA dependencies.

Production work already runs through it. A gem bouquet from the Natural History Museum Vienna was reconstructed as a 3D Gaussian splat by Geofront in May 2026. LichtFeld Studio is a free download.