Major tech updates – December 2023
2023-12-07
Christmas comes early as the app gets a facelift and ‘Gaussian Splatting’ arrives on OVER
The tireless development team at OVER have reached into the goody bag for some early Christmas presents. Log into the app and you’ll notice a significant change to the main browsing experience.
The app has graduated to version 1.5.1, the most significant change being the main browsing experience.
You’ll now be able to set your view of the world map to show global Experiences and OVER Maps made, Experiences only, or take a Marketplace view.
And on December 11 you’ll also be able to access the map2earn™️ as we start to Map The World in 3D!
Key features of the map2earn™️ section include:
- Map showing mappable areas
- Rewards and earnings overview
- Status of the Monthly and Major Prize Draws
- Tokens available to withdraw
Introducing Gaussian Splatting
Probably the most noticeable visual difference will be in the Mapper and the video previews of mapped locations.
Instead of visualizations courtesy of NeRF, these are now generated by Gaussian Splatting.
So what’s Gaussian Splatting then? Well, it’s not a new social media craze, nor is it a nasty food-borne illness common to the subtropics.
Put simply, Gaussian Splatting is a visual rendering technique, traditionally used in the medical and scientific fields to render images taken from multiple points of view.
Each 3D scene is made up of millions of particles or ‘Gaussians’ which, individually look like blobs or ‘splats’.
The benefit of Gaussian Splatting is that it is typically faster and delivers the same or better quality than NeRF rendering.
Explore your 3D maps
Head to the OVER Marketplace and select a 3D map. Use your mouse and directional keys to move around within the scene—pretty cool!
You may remember this recent post about our patent submission to enable real-time exploration of 3D mapped locations. This browser-based update is a sneak preview of what you can soon expect and experience via the OVER app.
Expect more changes soon as those selected as the first mappers in our Map The World in 3D initiative, are unleashed upon the globe and map2earnTM OVR tokens.
For more information—and to apply to be part of the Pioneer Program—visit our Map The World campaign site.