Guide
SPZ vs PLY: exporting your Spatiorama
Last updated: October 12, 2026
A Spatiorama is a Gaussian splat scene (see what is a Spatiorama?). You can take it out of the app in three forms: an SPZ file, a PLY file, or a high-quality mesh. They suit different jobs.
The short version
- SPZ for sharing, the web and mobile: small files, the same look.
- PLY for editing and the widest tool support: the standard splat format, uncompressed.
- Mesh for 3D software, game engines and anywhere that expects ordinary 3D models.
SPZ: compact splats
SPZ is an open file format for Gaussian splats, created by Niantic and published under the MIT licence. It stores the same splats as a PLY file, but compresses them: similar values are grouped together and packed tightly, with virtually no visible difference.
The saving is large. One of our example scenes, with about two million splats, is roughly 31 MB as SPZ and 136 MB as PLY, around a quarter of the size. That’s why the Spatiorama viewer streams SPZ files, and why SPZ is the right choice for websites, apps and phones.
Support for SPZ is growing quickly across splat viewers and engines, but it’s newer than PLY, so check that the tool you have in mind can open it.
PLY: the standard splat file
PLY is a long-established 3D file format, and the one the original Gaussian splatting research used for splat scenes. Nearly every splat viewer, editor and plugin can open it, which makes it the safest choice when you want to clean up, crop or combine scenes, or bring them into a tool that doesn’t support SPZ yet.
The trade-off is size: PLY files are uncompressed, so they’re several times larger than SPZ. PLY export is included with the Pro and Max plans (see pricing).
High-quality mesh: for everything else
Plenty of software doesn’t understand splats at all, but every 3D tool understands meshes. For those cases Spatiorama exports your scene as a high-quality mesh, ready for 3D modelling software, game engines and AR tools.
A mesh won’t capture quite the same soft, photographic look as the splats, but it’s far easier to edit and build on. Mesh export is a Pro and Max add-on that costs 400 credits per Spatiorama, and the mesh is kept after the first export.
Which should I choose?
- Sharing a Spatiorama with someone: no export needed. Send its link; it opens in any browser.
- Putting it on your own website or in a web app: SPZ.
- Editing it in a splat editor: PLY, or SPZ if the editor supports it.
- Using it in a game engine or 3D software: the high-quality mesh.
Try it yourself
Spatiorama is on the App Store for iPhone, and in beta on Android. Make a Spatiorama, then explore and share it from your phone. You can also look around our example Spatioramas in your browser first.
