(Image credit: Dany Bittel)
Crysta can make a 3D printed model of a Gaussian SplatThe detail level is quite remarkableIt doesn't come cheap, but nonetheless, this is jaw-dropping stuffEver wanted to take a scene from real life and shrink it into a snow globe-style model (minus the snow) to sit on your shelf, preserved forever?Well, maybe not forever, but you get the idea, and it's possible to do this now thanks to a firm called Crysta.As Dany Bittel explains on Patreon, Crysta offered to turn one of their 'Gaussian Splats' – of a bee – into a real-world representation of the insect courtesy of a 3D printer.@Crysta_AI printed one of my bees as a present! pic.twitter.com/HENIVMXaMJJune 18, 2026The result, as you can see in the post on X above, is pretty spectacular. But wait a minute, I hear you ask (probably): a Gaussian what-now? If you're not familiar with the concept of a Gaussian Splat, it's a 3D model of a real place or thing, built from video footage that you've filmed on your camera (or maybe a drone for more adventurous constructs).We've previously covered how this works in an in-depth article where we used a cloud-based service called Splatica to make our Splat, and suffice it to say, it's a very cool process with impressive results.Going a step further with the impressiveness, though, is taking that Gaussian Splat model and 3D printing it. (Crysta can also do this with an alternative process, Neural Radiance Fields, or NeRF).How is the model turned (back) into a physical rendition? Bittel notes that: "The Gaussian splat is first voxelated, a bit like a Minecraft level. Each voxel has a mix of inks and can be more or less transparent. This then gets printed on [a] special 3D printer, layer by layer."Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more.Cubic cost
