Varjo Teleport 2.0 Offers "Best-In-Class" Photorealistic Scene Captures

Varjo Teleport 2.0 upgrades the photorealistic scene capture service to "best-in-class" visual quality.

The service launched in November, priced at $30/month for up to 15 scans. With the release of Teleport 2.0, Varjo has now introduced a free plan with 5 scans, though unlike the paid plan it doesn't allow exporting the scans as PLY files.

Like Niantic's Scaniverse platform, Varjo Teleport uses Gaussian splatting, leveraging advances in machine learning to "train" a high quality output given a sequence of image views of the scene you provide by walking around with your phone, and you can then view these scans in PC VR. But Scaniverse processes scans on-device, while Varjo Teleport uses high-end cloud GPUs. That's why Scaniverse is free, but it's also why Varjo Teleport produces much higher quality results.

Meta also plans to let you capture real-world scenes with your phone, and released the Horizon Hyperscape Demo teasing this, but the company hasn't yet revealed details of whether this will be done on-device or in the cloud, nor whether it will have a cost.

With Teleport 2.0, Varjo says it has upgraded its technology to deliver "best-in-class" visual quality that preserves details even in large-scale scenes.

In fact, Varjo claims the results now match high-end photogrammetry, which requires significant manual work and doesn't properly model lighting effects like reflections.

And whereas the original Teleport release only supported the iPhone app as input, Teleport 2.0 can now take input from any camera, including drones and DSLRs.

Using the app, Varjo Teleport scans take 5 to 10 minutes of walking around holding your phone up, followed by between 30 minutes and 24 hours of cloud processing, depending on the size of the area scanned.

Scans can be previewed in the iPhone app, on the web, and most importantly in the Teleport Windows software which supports virtual reality. The app is compatible with all OpenXR headsets on PC, including Meta Quest headsets via techniques like Quest Link, Steam Link, and Virtual Desktop.

Captured scenes can also be exported as a PLY file for use in other software, which means they could even be converted to use in Unity or Unreal.

The $30/month Varjo Teleport subscription allows for up to 15 scans per month, while the free plan offers 5 scans without the ability to export as PLY. For businesses that need more than this, Varjo will offer custom plans if you reach out.

For viewing in VR, Varjo recommends at least a RTX 3070 for small scenes and at least an RTX 3090 for larger scenes. The company also said it's working on a standalone VR client for headsets like Quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro, but given the current beefy PC requirements we'll believe this when we see it.