Ben Mack

[Ben Mack @_Ben_Mack_]

@janusch_patas Great!! Really looking forward for large scale training.
High gs count will not just apply to large scale scene, but for smaller dataset captured with high res dlsr, i think it will be able to reach really really high details.

[Ben Mack @_Ben_Mack_]

@DuckbillStudio How many splats are in these scenes? Are you using 8k?
Weird that increasing splats did not help with quality because result with 360 cam usually have higher res than this. I still think higher splat count should help. But maybe the splats are mostly allocated into tree...

[Ben Mack @_Ben_Mack_]

@DuckbillStudio @lichtfeldstudio Really nice result! What is the image resolution you used for training? Did you downscale/limit max size or using full res?

[Ben Mack @_Ben_Mack_]

@kotohibi_3d Very nice, looking forward to the comparison vs osmo360 only, we’ll see how much lidar data can help

[Ben Mack @_Ben_Mack_]

@janusch_patas @naribubu @janusch_patas Is depth reg still on the plan? Do you think it should based on depth map or lidar point cloud directly?

[Ben Mack @_Ben_Mack_]

@DuckbillStudio It looks great! Thanks for sharing a lot of useful information!
Just a small question: why do you use video recording instead of photo capture of Osmo?
I thought photo mode has higher resolution than 8k, so it supposed to be even higher quality?

[Ben Mack @_Ben_Mack_]

@DuckbillStudio Do you think the result is cleaner than pure 360 cam workflow?
Most of xgrids results online seem really clean from floating artifacts, maybe they utilize lidar data quite well

[Ben Mack @_Ben_Mack_]

@itsandrewgao Really really looking forward this feature to be in Windsurf, it gonna be the very best in the market!
For now this is the biggest limitation of Windsurf to me compared to others.

[Ben Mack @_Ben_Mack_]

@itsandrewgao With current 20 tool call "hiccup", it simply too hard to work on slightly more complex problems. Which I tend to use Github Copilot because they don't have tool call limit so it easier to work on complex bug (It really feel much more agent like than just editing small patch).

[Ben Mack @_Ben_Mack_]

@Nik__V__ Wow, that sounds great!
Looking forward to the release of Apache model!

[Ayush Garg @01ayushgarg]

I need to talk about something we don't discuss enough in the startup world.

It's about the loneliness - the crushing, silent weight that comes with being an early-stage founder.

--
Over the years, I've lived many versions of work life - from the structured 9-to-5 grind to the chaos of startups as a developer, then running my own content studio, and now, building a SaaS product.

Each phase has taught me something, but nothing prepared me for the isolation that comes with being a founder.

Here's the thing about working in regular jobs - you're never really alone.

You walk into an office, and there's this buzz of energy. People are grabbing coffee, sharing jokes, and helping each other debug code. You build these little connections and make some friends.

Even when things get tough, you deal with office politics, you have people around who get it and understand your struggles. There's this sense of belonging that we often take for granted.

Then you decide to start something of your own, and everything changes.

When I worked in a content studio, I managed a team of 15. You'd think that would have meant lots of interaction, right?

But there was this invisible wall. I was their manager. Sure, I could be friendly, but I couldn't really be their friend.

The power dynamic was always there, making every relationship feel somewhat transactional.

Some of those people are my friends now, but back then? It was different.

But nothing quite compares to the loneliness of building a startup from scratch.

Right now, it's just me and my co-founder. We literally live together - he works in one room, I work in another. You'd think that would help, but there's something about spending hour after hour, day after day, just you and your laptop, trying to build something from nothing.

The silence can be deafening.

Sometimes we'll go entire days barely speaking, both lost in our own screens, our own problems, our own pieces of the startup puzzle.

It's like being alone together - two people sharing the same space, the same dream, the same anxieties, but still somehow feeling isolated in our own ways.

Some days are brutal. You wake up, and the weight of everything you need to do feels like it's pushing you back into bed.

You need to write code, fix bugs, work on marketing, and reach out to potential customers. And you need to do it all with energy and enthusiasm - maintaining this tireless belief that what you're building matters.

Building a startup demands relentless positivity and grit. You need to take rejection after rejection, failed feature after failed feature, and somehow keep pushing forward.

You need to maintain this facade of confidence and optimism, even when you're questioning everything.

But who do you talk to about the doubts? About the fears? About those moments when you're staring at your screen at 11 PM, wondering if any of this is worth it?

This isn't just my story. It's a silent epidemic in the startup world, especially among early-stage founders.

We're all out here, trying to build the next big thing, trying to change the world in our own little ways, but we're doing it in these isolated bubbles.

The startup ecosystem celebrates the highs so well - the funding rounds, the successful launches, and the massive milestones. But we rarely talk about these quiet moments of despair, these stretches of isolation that every founder goes through.

The irony is that founders are some of the most connected people. We’re in Slack groups, WhatsApp communities, Twitter groups. We DM each other, comment on posts, and give each other advice.

But these aren’t real, day-to-day relationships. These aren’t the people who see you struggle irl, who notice when you haven’t left your desk in 12 hours, who ask if you’re doing okay.

Everyone is too busy building.

So we exist in this paradox: hyperconnected online, deeply isolated in real life. At its core, it's about the absence of shared experiences.

So how do you deal with it?

You force connections. You create artificial structures to combat isolation. Maybe it’s co-working spaces. Maybe it’s accountability calls. Maybe it’s weekly meetups with other builders. You do whatever you can to trick your brain into feeling part of something bigger.

And you remind yourself - it’s temporary.

Loneliness is part of the early-stage grind. But it won’t always be this way. Eventually, you’ll have a team. You’ll build a culture. You’ll find people who share the mission, who stand beside you, who make the journey feel less solitary.

Until then, you just keep going.

I'm writing this because I want other founders to know they're not alone in feeling alone. That it's okay to admit that this journey can be incredibly isolating.

And that behind all those LinkedIn success posts and Twitter threads about growth hacks, there are real people dealing with real emotional struggles.

Maybe that's the first step - acknowledging this silent factor that affects so many of us. Opening up about it. Creating spaces where we can talk about not just our MVPs and metrics, but also about these deeper, more personal challenges.

Because while building a startup might be a lone journey in many ways, the feelings we experience along the way are universal.

These feelings - the loneliness, the doubt, the daily struggle - are experiences every founder understands, even if we don't discuss them as much as we should.

Cheers!

[Frank Jonen @frankjonen]

@TheFoundryTeam Moving it to Open Source would be a good move.

[Ben Mack @_Ben_Mack_]

@willeastcott Is that real time shadow casted by the splat directly or from a mesh? Looks really nice

[Ben Mack @_Ben_Mack_]

@patricegorissen Really looking forward to it 👋 👋 It’s an important topic for sure

[Rohan Paul @rohanpaul_ai]

Very powerful prompt: "Explain it with gradually increasing complexity."

[Arseny Kapoulkine 🇺🇦 @zeuxcg]

meshoptimizer v0.21 is out!

This release has many improvements related to meshlets: a new function to optimize meshlets for HW efficiency, extra features for meshopt_simplify* to make Nanite style processing easier to implement and faster, and more! RTs and ⭐️ appreciated :)