Gaussian splats on web maps: why centimeter accuracy doesn't matter – Jaroslav Poláček, MapTiler

0:00Michal Gula: It's the second day on the INTERGEO and, we have seen multiple people, coming to our, our, podcast studio with very different, impressions of, of the INTERGEO. What are yours? How do you like th- this years?

0:18Jaroslav Poláček: Yeah, I, I really like this INTERGEO. I, I just realized that my fi- first INTERGEO that I attended was 14 years ago.

0:29Michal Gula: 14?

0:29Tomáš Barnáš: 14.

0:30Jaroslav Poláček: Yeah.

0:31Tomáš Barnáš: Okay.

0:31Jaroslav Poláček: So-

0:31Michal Gula: Are you that old or you-... di- did start so early?

0:39Tomáš Barnáš: Right after getting 18.

0:42Jaroslav Poláček: Yeah. So it was, yeah, first experience. Now it's, it's changing a lot, so lots of, lots of new devices, lots of, lots of hardware, new, new technologies coming. So it's... And it's exciting to see how many new things were developed in, in such a, say, short, short time.

1:00Michal Gula: Jaro Poláček from Interge- from Interge- from, from MapTiler is, is our guest here. you also have a booth here?

1:08Jaroslav Poláček: not yet. no, not this, not this year. we are going to, to other, say, events this year, but, uh-

1:16Michal Gula: So y- you are still scouting?

1:18Jaroslav Poláček: Yeah. I'm just, walking around and see what's, what's new.

1:20Michal Gula: Scouting 14 years.

1:23Tomáš Barnáš: 14 years, yeah.

1:25Michal Gula: Well, what can you tell us about, MapTiler? What do you guys do?

1:29Jaroslav Poláček: Yeah. MapTiler is, we are a Swiss company. we, we have, complete mapping stack for developers, so the developers can build map applications for, for web. and, yeah, for on, on-prem, on-prem applications. And one of the most exciting things we, we have are, support for GeoSplats. so that's why I'm, I'm here today, to see-

1:59Michal Gula: we, we can speak about that, but maybe before that, can you tell us, like, is there any company we may know, who is using your, your platform for the maps?

2:08Jaroslav Poláček: Yeah. There are lots of, lots of companies around the world. So, every month... So it's, it's for, it's for developers. So developers create applications, map applications with, with our product. And every month there is 500 million people looking at our maps. So-

2:27Michal Gula: Okay

2:27Jaroslav Poláček: it's quite lots. It's, it's hard to say one of or few companies using our, our platform, but there are, there are lots of, lots of them from around the world.

2:37Michal Gula: I'm just guessing that you are not, like, collecting the data, yourself. You are buying the data from somebody?

2:45Jaroslav Poláček: Marek? Yeah, we are not collecting data, so we... But, we have, a data team who, who collects, it from, from different sources and, and see what's, what's new to, to provide our customers, say, the best, best data, best, best accuracy or latest, say, satellite data.

3:03Tomáš Barnáš: So that I wanted to touch, like, are you mainly using the satellite data or only? Because there are also, like, countries which had now, like, mm, digi- digitization of the countries done by planes, yeah, plane LiDAR and all of that. So you are pure focused on, on the satellite?

3:24Jaroslav Poláček: We collect both, satelli- satellite data and, and also, the vector data from, say, open resources and, and some, national, national, national agencies. So we combine them together. we always make sure that it has the quality so there is no, data that, doesn't match the, the, the real, real data in, in, in the field. So, like fake buildings or, so we always, always check if, if, the quality of data is, is high.

3:57Michal Gula: You already mentioned that, you're working also with the Gaussian splats. I don't think that your client, clients wanted it. W- was your idea to implement this?

4:09Jaroslav Poláček: Surprisingly, yes, they are interested. So developers are those who are asked to just create 3D realistic application-

4:18Michal Gula: Okay

4:18Jaroslav Poláček: for, for their clients. So for example, hotels or real estate will come to them and ask them to, to create something different than, just, having an image or video on, on, on the hotel's, website. So they create photorealistic, 3D, 3D, 3D map using Gaussian splatting and some they place markers and-

4:43Tomáš Barnáš: Also based on the satellite images?

4:46Jaroslav Poláček: It's from, from drone imagery.

4:48Tomáš Barnáš: Oh, drone.

4:48Jaroslav Poláček: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

4:48Tomáš Barnáš: Okay. Okay.

4:49Jaroslav Poláček: So... And then we-

4:50Tomáš Barnáš: So both then

4:50Jaroslav Poláček: combine the satellite imagery on, on, as a base map. And, and Gaussian splatting model on top of it.

4:59Tomáš Barnáš: Okay. That I understand. I was just like, "Oh, that's the first time I hear that someone is trying to play with the satellite images and turn them into Gaussian splats." So you have these applications.

5:08Jaroslav Poláček: Yeah.

5:08Michal Gula: And, s- so tell me, like, what is the... Do you have also like, like a 3D data of the buildings from, from the... Like at least the basic? Of, of course we cannot get the, all the details, but at least like the LOD1 or, or whatever. Do you have a 3D data from the buildings?

5:28Jaroslav Poláček: Yeah, we, we have it. So it, it represents a number of floors of, of those buildings. So there are not, say, no, no details-

5:36Tomáš Barnáš: Okay

5:36Jaroslav Poláček: about the structure of, of the building, but, it's, it's a box. So we, we have it and it's already, it's already-

5:42Michal Gula: Like all over the world or do you have like-

5:44Jaroslav Poláček: Yes, globally

5:44Michal Gula: areas where you have and where you don't have?

5:46Jaroslav Poláček: Yeah, globally. Yeah.

5:47Michal Gula: Oh, okay. And, are there any cities or, or sections where you actually have like photogrammetry data of, of the, of the 3D structures or?

5:57Jaroslav Poláček: Not yet. It's, we are, searching for, for this data, but we currently don't have, the s- the structure or, or, uh-... or colors of, of, of the buildings. So it's, it's, it's always, say, gray boxes. And the photorealism we are adding is, is now, through splats.

6:19Michal Gula: Have you ever thought about, like, allowing your clients or potentially like, like a any reality capturing company to just send you the data and to include in, in those maps? Like, like for example, we will scan the portion of the city, and we have, like license from the city to, to use it however we want. And we decide to send it to you so, so you can have it in, in your maps.

6:50Jaroslav Poláček: Yeah.

6:50Michal Gula: But let's turn it around. We decide to sell it to you.

6:54Jaroslav Poláček: Sorry, sorry. Sorry. The data is still remain you, your, your data, so it's, it's not like, uh-

7:02Tomáš Barnáš: Okay

7:02Jaroslav Poláček: when you upload something to us, it's, it's becomes public. So it, it still remain your data and you... only you can build, map applications on top of it. But yeah, if you are nice enough you can just let us know and, yeah, we can, we can, we can add it there. But, currently we, we only support customers' data, and one- once customer upload the data, only they can, they can have access to it and they can build map applications.

7:30Tomáš Barnáš: So you are actually keeping it always separated. Like if I as a customer-

7:34Jaroslav Poláček: Yes

7:34Tomáš Barnáš: start to use your, your database, I can do there whatever I want, but you don't allow another customer to touch my data until, for example, I don't... If I allow, then will you bring it to the database and everybody can do it? Or yeah?

7:47Jaroslav Poláček: Currently there's no marketplace-

7:49Tomáš Barnáš: Okay

7:49Jaroslav Poláček: for, for it. So it's, it's something like this. We, we, we were asked several, several times for, for this feature. but currently it's, it's not, it's impossible to share, a data set, uh- between users.

8:01Michal Gula: How do you solve the, the georeferencing of, of Gaussian splats?

8:05Jaroslav Poláček: We have our own georeferencing tool. We have 3D e- editor where we, where we enable users to georeference it on, on the map. So they can simply search the location where the model is, is located, and then they will change the, change the scale and, and the model is automatically placed on, on the terrain.

8:27Michal Gula: Do they do it just by the look at it? Like, just like really-

8:33Jaroslav Poláček: Visually

8:33Michal Gula: more or less visually?

8:34Jaroslav Poláček: Visually.

8:34Tomáš Barnáš: Okay.

8:35Jaroslav Poláček: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there is, there is no, say, centimeter ac- accuracy. so it's up to user to, to georeference it-

8:44Tomáš Barnáš: We also-

8:44Jaroslav Poláček: in, in a detail they, they need.

8:46Tomáš Barnáš: We also discussed it, multiple times today that, like you said, centimeter accuracy. There is always importance to know like what I need, and maybe in this scale, the centimeter accuracy doesn't play a role because you are speaking about world scale, right?

8:59Jaroslav Poláček: Exactly. Exactly. If, if they need centimeter accuracy, they would more likely prefer point clouds or working with point clouds. In this, in... or in our case, it's, it's more about, say, visual representation of reality for, for to public, or to tourists or, yeah, people who are searching for a new apartment. So they don't, they don't care much about, about the centimeter accuracy. They, they are looking for, say, visual qua- quality or visual representation of, of the place to better imagine how-

9:35Michal Gula: Is, is this feature constantly being used by your existing users? Or have you already like had a client that came to you just because of this feature?

9:44Jaroslav Poláček: For both. but we expect more, say, new segments coming to our platform because of, Gaussian, Gaussian splatting because it's, it brings, say, new level of, of, of realism to maps. So it's not like 2D map with, gray boxes representing buildings. It's, it's completely new use cases coming to us.

10:08Tomáš Barnáš: So are your data, streamed on the end or do you have like, like, like LOD system or, what's the technology behind?

10:17Jaroslav Poláček: Yeah. Every PLY file that is uploaded to us, we need to prepare for, for publishing. So we have, a pipeline which, creates LODs. it's also optimize the model for web publishing, and it save,.. and, and the final step is saving it, in our publishing, publishing formats, in streaming format. So yeah, we need to make sure that the data users upload to us, are smoothly rendered to, to users. So there is, yeah, it, it shouldn't be... The performance shouldn't be an issue. So yeah.

10:57Tomáš Barnáš: I think performance and also the amount of data you need to use when you open it on your device, right? Like if it's for mobile devices, then you also take care of that, that not someone is opening your world map and suddenly- his data are off.

11:09Jaroslav Poláček: Yeah, yeah. Everything's styled, everything is, has L- LODs, so we can stream only the data that user, needs to see. so for example, at the, at the lowest level, of, of, Gaussian splatting models, there is only 0.05% data loaded to, to the device.

11:35Tomáš Barnáš: As you mentioned, like you are not, exhibiting here on INTERGEO. What would be your like ideal conference or expo, where you can find your target customers? What, what... Where it would be? What it would be?

11:49Jaroslav Poláček: Yeah, yeah. For example, later this year we are going to Smart City Expo to Barcelona to, to show our products because, yeah, Gaussian splatting are closely related to, to Smart City use cases. And, yeah, so it's, it's one of them.

12:07Tomáš Barnáš: So kind of Smart City target is maybe the most S- one.

12:12Jaroslav Poláček: Yeah, smart city and also tourism. So earlier this year I was, just going to, to the biggest tourism expo, to, to see, the, the opportunity for, for, for Gaussian splatting, and it's clear that the, yeah, the opportunity is, is big in, in this segment.

12:34Tomáš Barnáš: Mm. Do you have various, like, licensing models how you offer the data? Or, like, if I want to build, for example, like, a navigation tool for, I don't know, cyclists and then... Or, like, our area of, like, tourists, because, like, I was always thinking about it. Like, if I want to build an application where I need a l- mapping system, I found it always, like, not comfortable that I would put there, like, some maps, like, buying, cutting, putting-

13:03Jaroslav Poláček: Mm

13:03Tomáš Barnáš: creating the application. So this feels like a great fit.

13:06Jaroslav Poláček: Mm.

13:06Tomáš Barnáš: and, yeah, h-how, how that works?

13:10Jaroslav Poláček: We try to keep it simple. so we have one free tier, one paid tier, and one custom for, say, custom, bigger, bigger, projects.

13:23Michal Gula: Okay. how, how is it going with your competition? Like, why would one choose MapTiler instead of, I don't know, like, Google or, or Apple Maps?

13:34Jaroslav Poláček: Mm. Yeah. It's, it's very... Yeah, the products are, are similar. it's on, on, on the users what, what they, what they decide. But the technologies are, are similar. We have, we have geocoding, we have base maps, satellite, street. I think that's... What customer will notice very quickly is, is also the price, that it will become, much more expensive than way, when they use our, our products. But everything from, from base map, from, from tiling, from geocoding, and, yeah, the, the other stuff are pretty much the same. For developer, there's no difference.

14:23Michal Gula: how big is your team?

14:25Jaroslav Poláček: Currently we have, 80 people, and it's, it's still, it's still growing, so.

14:31Michal Gula: No, the question was connected actually to, to the question before, because that might also be the reason why to work with you instead of the Google or Apple Maps, because you are much more flexible, right? Compared to these behemoths of-

14:46Jaroslav Poláček: And achievable.

14:47Tomáš Barnáš: Yeah. It's-

14:47Jaroslav Poláček: Yeah, and also the technical support is one of, one of the things. So if you need something, we have, we have technical support team who can just help you- very quickly, so you don't need to wait or search, long time on, on the, on, on the internet who you should contact.

15:07Tomáš Barnáš: But Apple has Apple intelligence.

15:11Jaroslav Poláček: It can, it can sometimes, sometimes help, but, uh-... yeah, people who, who contact our technical support typically have some, say, specific questions and, and, yeah, related to a project, and they need human to, to help them.

15:26Michal Gula: So the service is, I- I'm just guessing the, the cross-platform, like you can use it from computers through mobile phones, tablets, like everywhere, right?

15:35Jaroslav Poláček: Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

15:36Michal Gula: Okay.

15:36Jaroslav Poláček: It can be used, yeah, for, for developing any, any, mapping application on any device.

15:43Michal Gula: Great. do you allow for measurements on your maps? Because for example, Google Maps, you cannot really measure on, on those a- Like, I have, like, no idea why.

15:57Tomáš Barnáš: They have this Google Earth thing. Like, it's weird, no? Like, you have two products, it's like from one company which are kind of competing.

16:05Jaroslav Poláček: Yeah, we don't, we don't have measurement, measurement tool, so we have-

16:08Michal Gula: Then you must know the reason for that.

16:12Jaroslav Poláček: So I write it as a, as a insight for, for our future development.

16:16Tomáš Barnáš: But I assume that any developer who is taking your base can make the, the measuring tool on top of it, right? Because the scale should be proper.

16:24Jaroslav Poláček: Yeah. Yeah.

16:26Michal Gula: Or no?

16:27Jaroslav Poláček: I don't think it's, it's currently possible. They, they can, they can use our SDK to just add any, say, any, any content to, to the map so it match the, the use case. I don't think we can measure... We, we can show, the, the terrain and, and the shape of, of the terrain. Or something for, for s- sport applications or for sport, or for, for sport apps, but I'm not sure if we have measurement. I don't think so.

16:58Michal Gula: So, so, but the first time you, y- you said that it's for web support. Now we are speaking about applications, so, does your platform work also, or does your data work for, with the gaming engines? Like, I don't know, like Unreal or U- or Unity or?

17:15Jaroslav Poláček: not in most cases. So it's, it's typically for more, for web development and-

17:23Michal Gula: Okay

17:23Jaroslav Poláček: and mobile applications. So for every, any use case where, a map, it's, if it's 2D or 3D is, is needed, so we are the right place to, to start.

17:35Michal Gula: We do not accept 2D maps, so 2D is against my religion.

17:41Jaroslav Poláček: Okay. 3D. Thank you.

17:46Michal Gula: Great. Thank you. Thank you for coming, for sharing these, insights with us, and, good luck with your, company, with your, product, and enjoy the rest of the show.

17:57Jaroslav Poláček: Okay. Thank you.

17:58Michal Gula: Thank you very much.

17:58Jaroslav Poláček: Thank you.