Core Viewpoint - The article presents a novel approach to 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) compression by framing it as a Gaussian mixture model simplification, which effectively reduces redundancy while preserving geometric details [4][28]. Summary by Sections Introduction - 3DGS is a popular method for 3D scene modeling that uses numerous Gaussian spheres to create high-quality 3D representations. However, the redundancy in Gaussian spheres limits storage and rendering speed [4]. Methodology - The proposed Gaussian-Herding-across-Pens (GHAP) method treats the entire 3DGS as a Gaussian mixture model, aiming to reconstruct a smaller mixture model globally. This approach maintains the geometric structure while reducing the number of Gaussian spheres [8][9]. - GHAP employs a two-stage process: first simplifying geometric information (position/covariance), followed by refining appearance features (opacity/color). This decoupling enhances stability [9][19]. Experimental Results - The GHAP method was compared with various pruning-based and end-to-end compression methods. Results indicate that GHAP consistently outperforms other baseline methods while being close to the performance of full-sample end-to-end methods [20][24]. - At a 10% retention rate, GHAP maintains high visual fidelity across different models and scenes, demonstrating its effectiveness in preserving the original geometric structure [23][24]. Conclusion - The GHAP method offers a new perspective on 3DGS compression, focusing on Gaussian mixture model simplification to retain geometric detail. It is designed to be scalable for large 3DGS scenes and is compatible with most existing 3DGS frameworks [28].