Zillow Skytour has been released and relies on an obscure 3D capture technology called Gaussian splatting to offer navigable aerial home views.
After COVID-19, the industry’s supply of virtual touring content bloomed. Adoption accelerated for digital twin tech, collaborative search and just about any type of media that helps people understand property.
It wasn’t long before the desire to learn as much about a home before visiting in person collided with the searing rise of consumer-level artificial intelligence, technology that today can create room pans and fly-throughs with only a few still images.
Another family of emerging AI technology now entering real estate marketing is something called “Gaussian splatting.” The polysyllabic appellation refers to a method of visual data capture that, in the interest of brevity, helps turn flat, 2D images into 360º visuals, and it’s what Zillow uses to offer its latest Showcase Listing update, SkyTour.
In an extensive multimedia report last year, The New York Times described Gaussian splatting thusly: “Gaussian splatting creates a point cloud: a collection of points in 3D space coalesce into a model when viewed in aggregate.”
Got it?
A lot of devices can be used to capture the initial object being showcased. A drone is the best method for capturing home exteriors. The end result isn’t the sort of flyover footage common to the industry, an actual video format that can’t be controlled by the end-user. One can only watch, pause and fast forward.
Splatting technology creates an experience where the user is in control of the final viewing experience, able to click and drag around a home’s exterior in the same way one does a 3D interior. The original drone pilot doesn’t have to fly over every roofline, landscape feature or dormer; they merely need to make enough orbits — usually one pass, according to Zillow — to provide the underlying software a baseline understanding of what it’s viewing.
Zillow is now rolling out the technology as an addition to a virtual staging update, its interactive floor plan viewer and the 3D home experience already part of the Showcase product. Virtual staging rolled out in September and allows users to empty a room and apply a range of decorative styles, such as Modern, Scandinavian, Industrial, Mid-Century, Luxury, Farmhouse and Coastal. The UX enables homeshoppers to stage a listing in a partitioned screen, providing a seamless in-browser experience.
Zillow isn’t alone in its effort to help real estate consumers more comprehensively understand a home beyond a simple street-level establishing shot, a perspective that is growing more antiquated by the day. Home search competitor Realtor.com released its elevated tour technology called FlyAround in October. (Zillow initially launched SkyTour in July.)
While the intent is mostly the same, Realtor.com worked in partnership with mapping technology providers TopHap and Google 3D Maps. It relies on existing satellite imagery and TopHap’s geospatial splatting. It’s also very effective.
Shon Wedde, Director of Partnerships at Land id, a mapping visualization and real estate analytics firm, offered a quick synopsis of the difference, telling me that “Gaussian splatting is 3D rendering, and geospatial splatting is applying georeferenced data to the real world.”
Land id also released a flyover experience for understanding homes and land, an experience similar to what’s offered in fitness and activity tracking apps and navigation tools.
Zillow’s SkyTour is no doubt a compelling add-on to its Showcase Listing appeal, and something buyers can use as a virtual drive-by. Perhaps more important is the industry’s rather quick grasp of how such an emerging technology can improve the customer experience.
It didn’t take years for Gaussian splatting to find its way into real estate. While it’s been around since the early 1990s, commercial applications only emerged after the French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation released a paper in 2023.
Not bad for an industry once skeptical about the Internet.
Email Craig C. Rowe