Gaussian splatting is a volume rendering technique that deals with the direct rendering of volume data without converting the data into surface or line primitives. The technique was originally introduced as splatting by Lee Westover in the early 1990s.
This technique is revitalized and explodes in popularity in 2023, when a research group from Inria proposed the seminal 3D Gaussian splatting that offers real-time radiance field rendering. Multiple works soon followed, such as 3D temporal Gaussian splatting that offers real-time dynamic scene rendering.