Unity 3DGS Viewer Reaches 2.0, Adding Direct PLY/SPZ Loading and SPZ 4 Support

What happened

UnityGaussianSplatting, an MIT-licensed open-source project for rendering 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) in Unity, released v2.0.0 on November 2, 2026. The author is aras-p, and the release notes explain that the major version bump reflects a large restructuring.

The biggest change is that the previous step of creating a Gaussian asset is gone, so 3DGS .ply and .spz files can be used as they are. SPZ is a format published by Scaniverse, and this release also supports SPZ 4, which uses a zstd-compressed data stream. According to the README, the source can be StreamingAssets-relative, the file system (relative or absolute path), or a URL.

On the rendering side, global sorting was added so that multiple overlapping splat objects are sorted and composited correctly. Rendering options are now scene-wide settings rather than per-splat settings, and are switched with the GaussianSplatRenderingOptions component. In addition to the previous sorting plus alpha blending, stochastic rendering without sorting can be selected.

On the other hand, the splat editing tools were removed. The author says external tools such as SuperSplat Editor are easier to use and have more features. The README also states that no major additional development is planned as of November 2026.

How it works

Stochastic rendering uses noisy alpha testing and depth writing, and does not sort. According to the README, several temporal filters are available. The release notes explain that without a filter the result is quite noisy, but the noise decreases as frames progress and the image converges almost to the normal result.

The previous sorting plus blending method remains the default. GPU sorting uses DeviceRadixSort code contributed by Thomas Smith. The zstd decompression for SPZ 4 uses a port of TinyZZZ's Zstandard decoder to C#/Burst.

PLY must be in binary format, with all splat-related attributes stored as regular floats. SPZ versions 1 to 4 and SH (spherical harmonics) orders 0 to 3 are supported, but anti-aliased files are loaded with a warning, and SPZ extensions are not supported.

By the numbers

Why it matters

For production teams working with 3DGS in Unity, being able to display PLY/SPZ files simply by placing them in the project makes it easier to set up preview viewers and prototypes. It should also suit workflows where scan results are edited in other tools before being brought into Unity.

SPZ is used as a format for compressed delivery of 3DGS. Being able to read SPZ 4 in Unity adds options for practical work that spans multiple data formats. Loading from a URL is also supported, so setups that reference distributed data can be tried.

However, the author does not plan major further development and says the XR-related code paths have not been verified. For professional use, the decision needs to take forks and maintenance arrangements into account.

How to try it

1. Open a Unity project (projects/GaussianExample, -URP, or -HDRP) and open GSTestScene.
2. Place a 3DGS .ply or .spz file in Assets/StreamingAssets and drag it onto the PLY / SPZ field of a GameObject with GaussianSplatRenderer attached.
3. If needed, add GaussianSplatRenderingOptions to any GameObject and switch between Sorted Blended and Stochastic to compare appearance and performance cost.

Caveats and open questions

• The sources are only the GitHub README and the release notes (which are cut off partway), so some release contents, such as changes to memory usage, cannot be confirmed.
• The performance figures are numbers the author listed in the README for a specific scene and environment; it cannot be confirmed from the sources whether they were measured on v2.0.0.
• Supported environments are limited to D3D12, Metal, and Vulkan; DX11, OpenGL-family APIs, and WebGPU are described as unsupported or immature. The README says some mobile devices do not work and that Apple Vision Pro may not work.
• The author says they do not own VR/XR devices and that XR-related code may have been broken in this release.
• According to the README, the training software from the official paper implementation is for educational, academic, and non-commercial use, and commercial use requires a license from INRIA. Even though the viewer is MIT-licensed, how the PLY is produced needs to be checked separately.
• The X post that reported this release was based on a search AI summary; the facts in this article are based on primary information on GitHub.

Glossary

3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS)

A technique that represents real-world scenes with many 3D Gaussians (ellipsoidal points) and renders them quickly.

SPZ

A file format published by Scaniverse for storing 3DGS data in compressed form.

zstd (Zstandard)

A fast lossless compression method. It is used for the data stream in SPZ 4.

Stochastic rendering

A method that approximates transparency with random alpha testing instead of sorting, and averages over multiple frames to reduce noise.

SH (spherical harmonics)

Coefficients that represent view-dependent color. Higher orders give finer detail and larger data size.

Sources

Primary sources (publisher, paper, repository)

• aras-p/UnityGaussianSplatting（README・v2.0.0リリースノート）GitHub（github.com）・en

The X post that surfaced this story

• View @verukhimov's post on Xx.com

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