Gaussian Splatting-Based Thermographic Modeling for Building Envelope Energy Audits

Thermographic modeling is essential for facility managers to conduct energy audits for building envelopes and make retrofitting decisions. However, current thermal images have a lower resolution, resulting in low-quality modeling results. Therefore, we proposed this Gaussian Splatting-based thermographic modeling approach to assist facility managers in visualizing heat loss from building envelopes, conducting building inspection workforce training, and making building renovation decisions. Our framework adapted the Gaussian Splatting pipeline by adding thermal channels to the original Gaussian's 3D position, scale, rotation, transparency, and spherical harmonics. We used a campus building façade as a case study and implemented our approach. It shows that the innovative approach has a clearer vision of the thermographic models than existing approaches.