Managing Gaussian Splats in SketchUp
The Gaussian Splatting for SketchUp extension’s toolbar and the Gaussian Splatting Manager both provide tools and options to help you manage your uploaded splat. This includes visibility tools and options, modeling tools, and file management options.
Visibility Tools
Because Gaussian Splats use millions of data points, displaying them can affect your system's performance. The Gaussian Splat Manager offers the following options to help you balance visual quality with navigation speed:
Rendering Mode – Displays the highest quality rendering of the splat. Use this mode for presentations and visualization.
Modeling Mode – Decreases the display quality and disables blending to clearly show individual splats. Use this mode to easily pick points and snap to the splat when modeling.
Point Cloud Mode – Displays only the raw point cloud data behind the splat. Use this mode for the fastest display and easy navigation.
Transparency & Opacity – These sliders control how transparent the splat appears in relation to the rest of your model.
Modeling and Splat Manipulation Tools
The Gaussian Splatting toolbar offers several tools to help you after importing a splat into your model.
When you start tracing or designing new structures within the scanned environment, you can control how SketchUp interacts with the dense splat data:
Transparency & Opacity - The Gaussian Splat toolbar includes four presets that can help you adjust these settings with one click:
- Hide Gaussian Splatting (
) – Hides the uploaded splat so only SketchUp geometry appears in your model. - 50% Blending (
) – Shows both SketchUp geometry and the uploaded splat at 50% opacity. - 75% Blending (
) – Prioritizes visibility of the splat over SketchUp geometry. - No Blending (
) – Hides all SketchUp geometry and only shows the uploaded splat.
- Picking Priority – Toggle between Splat (
) or Model (
) on the toolbar to dictate whether SketchUp's drawing tools snap to the Gaussian Splat data or prioritize your native SketchUp elements.
You can use SketchUp’s native tools to manipulate a splat after you import it, but they may not work as you expect them to. To help manipulate splats in a model, the toolbar contains similar tools that are designed to work with the splats you import:
- Move (
) – Moves your splat around the modeling window. - Rotate (
) – Rotates your splat. - Crop Gaussian Splatting – Clicking Crop (
) or double-clicking the splat displays a bounding box. Grab the handles to isolate your area of interest and hide unwanted background clutter. - Scale Gaussian Splatting – Click Scale (
), pick two points on the splat, and type the desired real-world length in the dialog box to rescale the environment accurately. - Select Sub-part: Click Selection Box (
) and draw a rectangle over the splat to highlight a specific area. You can then click Copy or Cut on the toolbar to extract that part of the environment as a brand new splat entity. The extracted splat will appear as a new element in the Splat Manager where you can select, hide, rename, or delete it.
Saving Your Work
SketchUp does not store Gaussian Splat modifications directly inside standard SketchUp geometry. To keep your changes, you must create a linked file:
Click Save in the Splat Manager.
Save the project as a .
sklat(SketchUp Splat) file.Ensure you share both the .
skpfile and linked .sklat file when sending the project to collaborator