One of the things thats held me back from being super interested in this field is that my understanding is that there is likely to be some kind of mesh backing needed for this to progress.

IIRC some researchers had started to back the gaussians with a mesh to provide an editable artifact that would allow the gaussians to be moved and manipulated.

Is this anywhere near being a standard feature yet?

edit - ie https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.04796