The world of radiance field adoption has been greatly accelerating over the course of the last year. Many of the companies that we have profiled through the website have been located in the United States and Europe, but Japan is emerging as an equally strong, if not stronger, community of companies and creators pushing lifelike 3D forward. TAVIO, a startup founded to make 3D capture and rendering accessible to anyone, is looking to do just that. 

TAVIO came onto my radar last year when a music video using Gaussian splatting was released. A few days later, I spoke with Koji, TAVIO’s CEO, and was struck by the fidelity of their reconstructions, especially given that they can build scenes from as few as two images.

Their technology made a splash in the release of the music video “Words’ Limit” by Hinatazaka46, where splats were used not just as a technical showcase but as a storytelling device.

Users can upload either a pair of images or a short video (up to 60 seconds) for reconstruction. A large part of TAVIO’s intention is to enable people to revisit memories or moments in time, but in 3D. While the web app currently defaults to Japanese, an English version is in development, signaling plans to expand beyond Japan. TAVIO is also investing in research on dynamic 3D and preparing a companion app for Apple Vision Pro, bringing Gaussian splatting directly into immersive environments.

OPENHEART INC, the parent company of TAVIO, recently announced they had raised just under $900K in a seed round. This backing gives the team runway to expand both their product and research ambitions.

There will be some seriously cool things coming up prior to the end of the year for the Japanese company and not to mention for the general public. I do not believe it is widely known how much excitement there is for gaussian splatting across the world, but I do believe that we will see this meaningfully begin to shift by the end of this year. There is a growing excitement surrounding the world of lifelike 3D which ever so steadily continues to increase and be built. More information about Tavio can be found here.