PointCloudSnapPro Adds Gaussian Splats to Maya 2026

MSD Suite has released PointCloudSnapPro, a Maya 2026 plugin that loads gaussian splat PLY files into the viewport and renders them through Arnold.

Arnold 7.5.2 added 3DGS rendering and relighting in June, routing splats through the existing Points node and a gaussian_splat_shader. PointCloudSnapPro reaches that path through a separate extension, GaussianArnoldTranslator.dll, which MSD Suite describes as ribbon rendering.

Snapping runs directly on point cloud and gaussian splat surfaces with no proxy mesh, which Dario Ortisi, the developer, attributes to a proprietary algorithm. A ClipBox masks and isolates regions of the cloud interactively, and Ortisi describes saving an isolated region to a new file using the ClipBox or the rectangle and lasso selection tools. A measure tool reports real distances in the viewport.

Per splat radiusScale, opacity, color tint and emission controls are exposed in the Maya Attribute Editor. Format support covers LAS, PLY and MPC. The plugin ships as PointCloudSnapPro_2026.mll and requires Windows 10 or 11, Autodesk Maya 2026, Arnold for Maya, and an NVIDIA GPU.

Maya has carried radiance field tooling before. Nerfstudio's Maya plugin synchronizes a camera path JSON between Maya and a Nerfacto or Splatfacto reconstruction, working from an exported reference mesh.

PointCloudSnapPro is sold as a perpetual license in a three seat Indie tier and a ten seat Studio tier, with a free trial. Activation requires an internet connection and revalidates every 14 days. MSD Suite does not state on either product page is the splat count the viewport is built to handle, or any figure for load or render time.

It is available now on Gumroad.