Established in San Ygnacio, Texas, as part of an 18th-century settlement movement spearheaded by Jose de Escandón and Jose Vasquez Borrego, the Treviño-Uribe Rancho stands today as one of the best-preserved Spanish colonial ranchos in the Rio Grande Valley. The complex originated in 1830 (perhaps earlier) when Jesús Treviño purchased 125,000 acres of former land grant territory and built a single-room, thick sandstone structure. Following the 1831 marriage of Treviño's daughter to merchant Blas María Uribe, the home became the center of a thriving border trade hub and underwent major defensive building campaigns in 1851, 1854, and 1871. These expansions transformed the single room into the multiroom, L-shaped compound visible today, featuring high protective walls pierced by troneras (gun ports) alongside unique period additions like a surviving sundial mounted above the arched gateway. Despite being constructed incrementally over a 40-year period, the compound maintains an architectural style nearly identical to 18th-century regional villas, with its original structure fully intact and preserved as a National Historic Landmark.
This is one of my most ambitious 3DGS scenes to date. It is built using 360 video recorded with both the Antigravity A1 and Insta360 X5. I exported the videos from Insta360 Studio, used the 360 Extractor Blender add-on (https://toppinappi.gumroad.com/l/360extractor) to create a series of flat images, and imported them into PostShot before additional editing in SuperSplat. The interior courtyard received the most attention, with several passes by both cameras. Unfortunately, overly friendly pubs interrupted some of the passes along the exterior, particularly the 'front' area, where only one pass with each camera occurred. As such, this is a teaching example for my upcoming classes that illustrates how the different levels of documentation impact the final 3DGS.