The goal was ambitious: to generate a hyper-detailed 3DGS scan from a massive dataset—20,000 drone photos at full resolution (5280x3956px). All of this on a single machine with just one RTX 4090 GPU.
What was the problem?
Most existing tools simply can’t handle this volume of data. For instance, Postshot, which is excellent for many tasks, confidently processed up to 7,000 photos but choked on 20,000—it ran for two days without even starting the model training.
The Breakthrough Solution.
The real discovery was the software from GreenValley International
https://www.greenvalleyintl.com/LiDAR360MLS
Their approach is brilliant: instead of trying to swallow the entire dataset at once, the program intelligently divides it into smaller, manageable chunks, trains each one individually, and then seamlessly merges them into one giant, detailed scene. After 40 hours of rendering, we got this stunning 103 million splats PLY result:
🔗 https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1YYNLzeO8YIWigVqQkkc7NvgcKOK0bU0A
New Challenge: How to display 103 million splats?
The processing problem is solved, but a new one has emerged. The final file contains a massive 103 million splats, and publishing it for online viewing has proven tricky. Most web viewers cap out at around 40 million splats. Right now, this behemoth can only be viewed in Postshot. I’m looking for a way to share it online without sacrificing detail. Any ideas, community?
What’s next?
I plan to push this even further and build a dataset of 100,000 photos with a detail level of 0.3 cm/pixel. I have a strong feeling that even this volume can be processed on a single 4090! The only downside is that GreenValley’s software isn’t free, but for this level of power, it’s definitely worth the investment.
For You: Free Resources & Opportunities
120GB of source data for your research.
As promised, I’m sharing the entire 20,000-photo dataset. Feel free to use it for your own R&D projects, tests, and experiments.
Download it here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1YYNLzeO8YIWigVqQkkc7NvgcKOK0bU0A
My library of free scans (bookmark this!).
I’ve created a dedicated page where I’ll be collecting all my free datasets: from RAW data to production-ready PLY files for Virtual Production and post-production.
Link to the page: https://lnkd.in/duijZGPB (404, working on it now :) … )
