Fleeting Masterpieces: Las Fallas 3DGS Collection

The Las Fallas Festival is a traditional event held annually in Valencia, Spain—an extravagant, bittersweet celebration marking the turning point of the year. Unlike any other festival in the world, Las Fallas elevates symbolism to an extraordinary level by commissioning stunning, large-scale artworks—only to set them ablaze in a climatic farewell known as La Cremà. This act of burning is not destruction, but rather a powerful ritual of renewal and letting go.

Rooted in centuries-old tradition, Las Fallas began as a modest springtime custom where carpenters would burn wooden scraps and parots (wooden lampstands) to bid farewell to winter. Over time, it evolved into a city-wide spectacle featuring fallas: towering, often satirical sculptures crafted from cardboard, wood, and other materials. For the people of Valencia, the festival is more than celebration—it's an expression of cultural identity, artistic mastery, and communal rebirth.

Determined to preserve the ephemeral beauty of these fallas, Aurelio Puerta Martin, an XR developer and longtime KIRI Engine user, turned to 3D Gaussian Splatting to digitally capture several of the fallas before they were set ablaze.

With over six years of experience in augmented reality, Aurelio has extensive knowledge built on an array of creative works from personal to industry standard projects across entertainment and game development. After discovering KIRI Engine during prototyping, Aurelio began experimenting with scanning everyday objects and placting them into AR spaces, for example, capturing a dish and visualizaing it next to the real thing. Familiarizing himself with the 3D capturing process, Aurelio realized that 3D reconstruction technology could be an extremely effective tool to help preserve cultural heritage, especially for time-sensitive events like Las Fallas.

The following visuals showcase some of Aurelio's scans—digital keepsakes of artworks that no longer exist in the physical world.

Created by Sergio Musoles

Created by Mario Gual

Created by Art en Foc (Enrique Iborra y Jesús de la Hoz)

Vicente Martínez Aparici designed by Juan Ramón Vázquez

Created by Sergio Alcañiz

Created by Mario Pérez

These smaller fallas were both created by Zvonimir Ostoic and designed by Ramón Plá

Created by Joan S.Blanch

Created by David Ojeda

Created by Fernando Foix

The visualizations above showcase just how effortlessly 3D Gaussian Splatting can capture large, complex scenes with incredible detail and fidelity. From the vibrant colors to the intricate textures, every nuance of these breathtaking fallas is preserved with uncanny accuracy. These sculptures, built to be admired and then lost to flames, represent an extraordinary blend of craftsmanship and cultural expression. With 3DGS, that fleeting beauty is no longer confined to memory or photographs—it lives on in full dimensionality, ready to be revisited, studied, or even experienced in augmented reality. In moments like this, the technology becomes more than a tool as it embodies a quite witness to tradition, preserving what once had to be let go.