Intro to 3D Scanning, Photogrammetry & Gaussian Splats

Digitally capture the world around you—from tiny props to entire rooms—and bring those scans to life in Unreal Engine or the browser-based StorySplat viewer. In this one-day intensive, award-winning immersive-media director Winslow Porter guides you through LiDAR, photogrammetry, and the latest breakthrough: Gaussian Splatting. We’ll trace the tech’s evolution, sample free capture tools, and build a showcase scene you can share on social media or add to your portfolio by day’s end.

In this class, we will cover all of the different methods of digitally capturing characters, objects, and environments. We will dive into the origins and evolutions of the technology and experiment with its most recent cutting edge developments with photogrammetry and Gaussian Splatting. We will also showcase all of these captures inside the Unreal game engine and in the web-based tool Storysplat.

At the end, each participant will have built a showcase scene you can share on social media or add to your portfolio by day’s end.

For more workshops like this, visit Tandon at The Yard's 2025 Summer Workshops page.

• XR artists, game developers, filmmakers seeking authentic digital assets
• Photographers & conservationists interested in volumetric documentation
• Creative coders & technologists exploring new spatial-computing pipelines

A basic grasp of Unreal Engine navigation and camera capture is helpful but not required.

• Laptop/desktop capable of running Unreal Engine 5.x
• (Optional but encouraged) DSLR / mirrorless camera or smartphone with LiDAR/photogrammetry app
• Free software: RealityCapture demo, Polycam or similar, PostShot/Luma AI accounts
• External SSD / SD card reader for large image sets
• Headphones for focused work sessions
  

10:00 – 10:15

Welcome & Intros
Grab coffee, settle in, share capture goals

10:15 – 10:45

History of 3D Scanning
From early measuring tools to LiDAR, photogrammetry & Gaussian splats; start downloading free software

10:45 – 11:15

Instructor Case Studies
Winslow’s projects CLOUDS, Giant, Forager, Anicam—lessons learned

11:15 – 12:15

LiDAR Capture Demo
Scan the room; pipeline to RealityCapture; texturing tips

12:15 – 12:45

Break - Ensure software installs are complete

12:45 – 1:45

Photogrammetry Lab
Shoot & process your own object scans with RealityCapture + Polycam (mobile)

1:45 – 2:45

Gaussian Splatting Intro
Tools: PostShot, Polycam, Luma; start renders for break

2:45 – 3:00

Break

3:00 – 4:30

Project Sprint
Build a mini-environment in Unreal or StorySplat; place at least one scan; craft a narrative

4:30 – 5:00

Showcase & Closing
Demo scenes, gather feedback, share next-step resources

By the end of the day you will:

1. Differentiate LiDAR, photogrammetry, and Gaussian-splat captures—and know when to use each.
2. Execute a complete capture-to-render workflow with free or low-cost tools.
3. Import & stage scanned assets inside Unreal Engine or StorySplat.
4. Produce share-worthy documentation (screenshots, turntables, or Web links) for your portfolio.
5. Access a curated list of software, hardware, and reference tutorials for deeper exploration.
   
   

Winslow Porter — Winslow Porter is an award-winning director, producer and creative technologist specializing in virtual/augmented reality as well as large-scale immersive installations. His work focuses on embodying the unique timescales of non-human organisms, through various emerging technologies. His impact-based virtual reality projects Tree, Forager and Giant are known for pushing the boundaries of immersion through custom multisensory elements like scent, wind, heat, haptics and installation design. These experiences have been shown across the globe at events like Sundance, Tribeca Immersive, TED, The World Economic Forum in Davos/Tianjin/Cape Town, UN General Assembly, World Government Summit, Venice Film Biennale, SXSW, Unrealfest and many others.

Along with being a two-time Cultural Leader at the World Economic Forum, and an an eight-time mentor at NEW INC, he is also a professor at NYU and Columbia University.

His newest conservation endeavors include volumetric animal portraiture with FujiFilm, and an interactive (Gaussian Splat) documentary about traditional Japanese land stewardship, also known as Satoyama.

LinkedIn: winslowporter

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