ConUHacks IX - Concordia Virtual Tour++

At ConUHacks IX, Quebec's largest hackathon, our team developed an innovative solution to revolutionize Concordia University's virtual campus tour experience. The project placed in the top 5 among 180+ submissions, demonstrating both technical excellence and practical utility. We leveraged 3D Gaussian Splatting, a cutting-edge machine learning technique in computer graphics, to transform traditional static images into a fully immersive 3D environment that visitors can freely explore.

The application allows users to freely navigate through photorealistic 3D reconstructions of campus spaces, allowing them to form a stronger connection with the university. We enhanced the experience by integrating 'Sting,' an AI chatbot named after Concordia's Stingers mascot, which serves as a virtual tour guide providing dynamic information about Concordia, exam periods, professors, and more.

Our implementation processes multiple photographs to create a point cloud using COLMAP, which is then converted into Gaussian points - specialized 3D elements with specific characteristics including position, color, orientation, and size. Through iterative optimization, these points are refined to create near-photorealistic representations of campus spaces, achieving high-quality results within the 24-hour hackathon constraint.