Topps Cards 3DGS Capture

A Topps trading card advert where the whole scene is 3D: a floating footballer scanned by 60 cameras, and a ball that was never actually kicked.

What Did We Do?

Topps wanted a football trading card advert where the scene itself is 3D, not video: a floating footballer the camera can travel around freely. We captured it with 3D Gaussian Splatting on a 60 camera rig, set up in about two hours, with on set previews available within seconds of each capture.

To scan people or moving objects you need a camera rig, because every angle has to be captured in the same instant with no movement between frames. That is exactly what the rig does, and it is why the whole scene, player, kit and environment, exists as a navigable 3D reconstruction rather than a locked off shot.

The football is the good story. After the actors left, we threw a football into the air and scanned it in roughly the right position. The ball you see in the finished advert is not the one she kicked: because everything is 3D, we could move around the scanned ball and place it exactly where the shot needed it.

We have not found anything we cannot scan yet.

Common 3D Gaussian Splatting FAQs

Why not just film it?

Because a 3DGS scene is not a camera angle, it is the whole moment in 3D. The camera path is decided afterwards, in post, and can be anything.

Can objects be scanned separately and combined?

Yes. The football in this advert was scanned after the actors had gone and placed into the perfect position in 3D.

What can you scan?

People, moving objects, products, sets. We have not found the limit yet.