DEMO
Mohammed Rashad
Personal photographs preserve moments in time, yet fail to reconstruct the spatial and emotional depth of lived experience. Photo to Portal is a WebXR application that addresses this limitation by transforming static images into explorable, photorealistic three-dimensional environments through Gaussian splatting, enabling users to inhabit their own memories rather than passively observe them.
The system is built on Three.js, Meta's Immersive Web SDK (IWSDK), and SparkJS, and presents users with a virtual gallery housing personal photographs across display frames. Selecting a photograph triggers the World Labs Marble API, which synthesizes a navigable Gaussian-splat scene from the source image. Users traverse the reconstructed environment via controller thumbsticks in XR mode or touch-based virtual joysticks in flat mode.
The application is cross-platform by design, requiring no installation or dedicated hardware. XR Headset users access full six-degrees-of-freedom immersion, while iOS and Android users explore generated worlds in flat mode through a standard browser. Collaborative affordances, including spatial annotations, freehand volumetric drawing, and positional voice notes, support shared memory exploration across connected sessions.
Photo to Portal demonstrates the viability of Gaussian-splat-based world generation on the open web as a method for producing immersive, emotionally resonant spatial experiences accessible without specialized software or headset ownership.