Summer Research Intern, 3D Gaussian Splatting

Ofinno•Reston, VA

12d•Onsite

About The Position

As a Summer Research Intern in the Advanced Media Lab, you will work alongside two senior engineers to jump-start Ofinno’s 3DSDK software stack around 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) coding. The 10-week, on-site summer internship is software-integration-first, with research-flavored work layered on top as time allows. You will integrate V-PCC and 3DGS preprocessing into ffmpeg, contribute to an initial encoder-plus-decoder tool chain, and ship reproducible code that the AML team can iterate on after you leave.

Requirements

Currently enrolled Ph.D. student (post-qualifying-exam) in EE / CS or related field — graphics, computer vision, signal processing, or systems.
Strong C / C++ — comfortable reading and modifying a non-trivial production codebase (ffmpeg, V-PCC reference implementation, or equivalent).
Python proficiency for tooling, scripting, and tests.
Familiarity with at least one of: video / point-cloud / 3DGS coding stacks; ffmpeg internals (libavcodec, libavformat, the filter API); build systems for large C / C++ projects.
Engineering judgment — willing to choose pragmatic integration paths over open-ended research detours, and to scope work to fit a 10-week window.
Strong written and verbal communication, including the ability to document design decisions, write a clear technical report, and present results to the team.

Nice To Haves

Prior experience touching a real codec or media pipeline — school project, open-source contribution, prior internship, or thesis work.
Exposure to 3D Gaussian Splatting, point-cloud compression, neural rendering, or learned image / video compression.
Comfortable with profiling tools (perf, VTune, gprof, or equivalent) and basic performance work on C / C++ codebases.
Familiarity with rate-distortion methodology and standard quality metrics.

Responsibilities

Integrate MPEG V-PCC into ffmpeg — encoder-side wrapper / filter / codec module, build-system integration, and test fixtures against reference content.
Implement a basic 3DGS preprocessing path in ffmpeg — a clean preprocessing utility that takes a reference Gaussian Splat asset and produces the input expected by the encoder.
Contribute to an initial encoder-plus-decoder tool chain — the decoder-side counterpart and the glue needed to run an end-to-end encode → decode round-trip on at least one reference asset.
Make integration-level design and trade-off calls — parameter defaults, container choices, color and colorspace handling, basic profiling and optimization.
Document and hand off the work — deliver a week-3 integration plan, a week-6 mid-program demo, and a final technical report plus handoff doc supporting FTE follow-on at week 10.
If time allows, pursue a scoped research-flavored exploration informed by integration learnings — e.g., a preprocessing variation, an RD trade-off study, or a profiling-driven optimization.