DJIs flagship dronemapping software, Terra, has just leapt to version5.0 and the update is every bit as substantial as its roundnumber suggests.
The headline feature is native support for 3DGaussian Splatting, a nextgeneration rendering technique that turns standard photographs into richly detailed, lifelike digital twins in a fraction of the time required by traditional photogrammetry.
The new release also debuts an overhauled interface, fresh export options, upgraded hardware support, and a friendlier licensing model, making Terras toolset more accessible to surveyors, filmmakers, civil engineers, and publicsafety teams alike.Why 3D Gaussian Splatting mattersGaussian Splatting represents each pixel as a tiny 3D Gaussian blob and optimizes their collective arrangement to approximate both geometry and colour.
This approach excels at representing fine edges, reflective or transparent materials, intricate vegetation, and other scenes that stump classic meshplustexture pipelines.
DJI says the method produces distortionfree orthomosaics in addition to 3D models, giving surveyors clean 2D and 3D outputs from a single workflow.In DJI Terra, splat processing runs ondevice (it is not a cloud service) and supports both 2D and 3D deliverables.
Results are written to a new <project>/3dgs/results folder in three industryfriendly formats:3DTiles (Terras own LOD schema, viewable in Cesium)PLY for universal 3D exchangeGeoTIFF for GIS orthomosaicsThe firstgeneration implementation does not yet handle cluster reconstruction or inapp annotations, but a Cesium viewer plugin is already on DJIs roadmap.Advertisement - scroll for more contentA cleaner UI and two product tiersVersion5.0 sports a fully redesigned interface with reconstruction parameter templates that prefill common settings, cutting setup time for novice users while still letting power users dive deep.
DJI has also rationalized its SKUs:Standard, the baseline edition, free upgrade for legacy Survey/Pro licenseesFlagship, adds Gaussian Splatting and ships as a nocost upgrade for Electricityedition customers; Cluster users inherit all Flagship features automaticallyHolders of permanent Terra 5.0 keys can move to the latest build without paying a maintenance fee.New capture sources and export pipelinesBeyond Gaussian Splatting, Terra 5.0 broadens input and output flexibility:Orthophotobased 2D mapping from the Matrice4T ideal when only visiblelight stills are available.Detailed Inspection projects now accept imagery from DJI Matrice4T,4D,4TD, and4E drone platforms bringing highresolution faade analysis and assetmanagement to the newest airframes.FBX mesh export for direct ingestion into engineering, VFX, and gamedevelopment software.LAZ pointcloud export, shrinking storage footprints versus LAS without quality loss.Japans JPGEO2024 elevation system joins the list of supported coordinate frameworks.Collectively, these changes make it easier to push Terra data downstream whether thats a Cesium web viewer, a BIM pipeline, or a Unity game scene.Performance and hardware upgradesDJI has taken the opportunity to refresh Terras engine under the hood:LiDARto2D ortho reconstructions now run 2050% faster, depending on workstation specs.RTX50series Blackwell GPUs are officially supported, unlocking the highbandwidth memory and AI cores of NVIDIAs 2025 flagship cards.Model visual clarity has been sharpened, and the GCP (groundcontrolpoint) page opens more quickly.Users can switch the output coordinate system from the taskpage footer without restarting a project (visiblelight aerotriangulation excepted).Gaussian Splatting itself demands Windows10/1164bit, 32GBRAM, and a GPU with compute capability6.1or higher (4GBVRAM minimum, 8GB recommended).Smarter agriculture, clearer deliverablesOn the analytics side, DJI has retrained Terras machinelearning models for precision agriculture.
The software now more accurately separates fruit trees, buildings, utility poles, water bodies, bare ground, and other classes laying the groundwork for better yield estimation and landuse reporting.Maintenance patches already rolling outA day after 5.0.0 landed, DJI shipped version5.0.1, resolving a bug that prevented offline (airgapped) licenses from upgrading during the freeiteration window.
The rapid followup indicates DJI plans to iterate quickly on its new splatting engine good news for users eager to see annotation, measurement, and cluster processing added back in.Terras evolution mirrors a broader trend: bringing emerging academic vision research straight into practical field tools.
For survey and inspection teams already flying Matriceseries drone platforms, Gaussian Splatting promises faster processing, sharper edges, and fewer artefacts especially on glass, powerlines, and foliage without an expensive lidar payload.
Architectural visualizers gain a oneclick route to FBX meshes; city planners can sling 3DTiles straight into Cesium for webbased stakeholder demos; and agricultural consultants see more reliable ML classifications.
Throw in leaner pointcloud storage, better coordinatesystem handling, and complimentary license upgrades, and Terra 5.0 feels less like an update and more like a relaunch.More:Three new DJI drones just dropped but not for youFTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links.More.