Insta360 Meets 3D Gaussian Splatting: KIRI Engine Powers a New Way to Capture the World in 3D

A new collaboration between KIRI Engine and Insta360 is making it dramatically easier to capture large real-world environments and turn them into photorealistic 3D spaces.

Walk through the environment to turn a 360 video into virtual spaces

Today, we’re excited to announce the global collaboration between KIRI Engine and Insta360, bringing together Insta360’s 360° imaging technology and KIRI Engine’s expertise in 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS).

The idea behind the collaboration is simple:

What if capturing a real-world environment in 3D could feel almost as natural as recording a video?

For years, one of the biggest challenges in 3D reconstruction hasn’t simply been the reconstruction algorithm. It has been capturing the data correctly in the first place.

With a traditional camera or smartphone, capturing a large scene for 3D reconstruction often means carefully planning your route, repeatedly pointing the camera toward different parts of the environment, and making sure you have enough visual overlap between frames.

A 360 camera fundamentally changes that equation.

Combined with KIRI Engine's 3D Gaussian Splatting technology, Insta360 cameras can capture visual information in every direction simultaneously — creating a much simpler way to turn real places into explorable 3D spaces.

The 3D scene generated with Insta360, you can explore the 3D scene using the joy stick mode

Why 360 Cameras Change 3D Gaussian Splatting

3D Gaussian Splatting has quickly become one of the most exciting technologies in 3D reconstruction.

Instead of representing a scene primarily through traditional polygons and textures, 3DGS reconstructs it using millions of 3D Gaussians, allowing complex real-world appearances, lighting and environments to be rendered with remarkable visual fidelity.

But there is still a fundamental requirement:

You need enough visual information about the scene.

With a smartphone or conventional camera, the camera only sees what you point it toward.

That works extremely well for objects and smaller environments. But as scenes become larger, capture becomes increasingly demanding. You need to deliberately cover different directions, surfaces and viewpoints while maintaining enough overlap for reconstruction.

A 360 camera captures the world differently.

Instead of capturing a limited field of view, it records the environment surrounding the camera at the same time.

For 3D reconstruction, that means every step through an environment can contain far more spatial information.

And that makes the capture process much easier.

The 360 video captured with Insta360

An Easier 360 Camera Gaussian Splatting Workflow

Traditional 360-camera Gaussian Splatting workflows can still be complicated. They may involve manually extracting frames, processing panoramic images, converting projections, preparing datasets and running reconstruction pipelines on a computer.

Our goal with Insta360 is different.

You capture. The system handles the complexity.

A typical capture can be surprisingly straightforward.

Start by walking naturally through the environment with the Insta360 camera held slightly above your head. This gives the reconstruction system broad coverage of the overall space.

If there is a particular subject or area you want to preserve in greater detail, lower the camera closer to chest height and make an additional pass around it.

That’s it.

You don’t have to constantly rotate the camera toward every wall, object or direction.

Because it is a 360 camera, the camera is already looking everywhere.

This seemingly small difference completely changes the experience of capturing large environments for 3D Gaussian Splatting.

From a 360 Video to an Explorable 3D Space

The result is more than a panoramic video.

A normal 360 video lets you look around from the position of the camera.

A reconstructed 3D Gaussian Splat lets you move through the captured environment.

Instead of simply turning your head inside a spherical video, you can explore the scene from new viewpoints and experience the spatial relationships between objects, people and the environment.

In other words:

360 video records what the camera saw.
3D Gaussian Splatting reconstructs the space the camera moved through.

That difference is at the heart of our collaboration with Insta360.

Read more about Insta360's Spatial Capture on X

Making Large-Scale 3D Capture More Accessible

At KIRI Engine, we have spent years working toward one goal: making advanced 3D reconstruction technology accessible outside of specialized laboratories and professional scanning setups.

We brought photogrammetry, LiDAR scanning and 3D Gaussian Splatting into workflows that can run from devices people already own.

But large-scale scene capture remains one of the hardest parts of mobile 3D reconstruction.

A smartphone is an incredibly capable camera, but there is an unavoidable limitation: its field of view.

As the environment gets larger, users need to capture increasingly complex camera paths to make sure the entire scene is properly covered.

360 cameras offer a different solution.

Instead of asking users to become better 3D scanning operators, we can make the capture device itself collect more information.

That is why we believe the combination of 360° cameras and 3D Gaussian Splatting is so powerful.

It reduces the amount of knowledge required to capture a good dataset — and brings us another step closer to a future where capturing something in 3D feels as ordinary as taking a photo or recording a video.

Why KIRI Engine and Insta360?

Insta360 has spent years changing how cameras capture the world.

By removing the need to decide exactly where the camera should point while recording, 360 cameras introduced an entirely different philosophy of image capture: capture first, frame later.

At KIRI Engine, we have been approaching a similar problem from the 3D side.

How can we make capturing reality in three dimensions require less specialized hardware, less technical knowledge and less manual work?

These two ideas fit naturally together.

Insta360 captures the visual information surrounding the camera.

KIRI Engine reconstructs that information into a navigable 3D environment.

Together, we are exploring what happens when a 360 camera becomes more than a camera for panoramic video — and starts becoming a practical tool for capturing the physical world in 3D.

What Can 360 Camera 3D Gaussian Splatting Be Used For?

The possibilities go far beyond creating impressive 3D demos.

Large-scale Gaussian Splatting can be useful anywhere preserving the appearance and spatial feeling of a real environment matters.

That could mean capturing a childhood home before moving away.

Digitizing a museum, historical building or cultural site.

Recording a film set or production environment.

Creating realistic locations for VFX, games and virtual production.

Documenting architecture and real-world spaces.

Capturing travel destinations.

Or simply preserving a place that matters to you.

Some of these applications are professional.

Others are deeply personal.

And we think both are equally important.

Because ultimately, the significance of easier 3D reconstruction isn't just that we can create more 3D assets.

It's that we can begin recording more of the world spatially.

From Photos and Videos to Spatial Capture

For most of modern history, cameras have recorded a three-dimensional world onto a two-dimensional surface.

Photography allowed us to preserve a moment.

Video added motion and sound.

360 video expanded how much of the environment we could see.

Now technologies like 3D Gaussian Splatting are beginning to preserve something else:

the space itself.

You can move around it.

Look behind objects.

Experience depth.

Return to a viewpoint the original camera never explicitly recorded.

We believe this represents a much broader shift in how people will eventually record the world around them.

And making that transition happen requires more than better reconstruction algorithms.

It requires making capture dramatically easier.

That is what makes this collaboration with Insta360 so exciting for us.

The Beginning of a New 3D Capture Workflow

3D Gaussian Splatting is still a young technology.

360 cameras are continuing to improve.

And the workflows connecting the two are only beginning to emerge.

But we believe the direction is clear.

The future of 3D capture won't require everyone to understand camera calibration, photogrammetry pipelines, panoramic projections or reconstruction parameters.

Eventually, capturing something in 3D should be simple:

Press record.
Walk through the space.
Capture the world around you.

The technology underneath can be complicated.

The experience shouldn't be.

Together with Insta360, KIRI Engine is taking another step toward that future.

Welcome to a new way of capturing the world in 3D.