So do this paper, although they get basically the same result from random initialization. But as mentioned, the point cloud is free since they need the camera poses anyway.
> We initialize our samples either randomly or from point clouds, typically
from Structure-from-Motion (SfM) as in 3DGS
> But as mentioned, the point cloud is free since they need the camera poses anyway.
If you have a rigid multi-camera rig, the camera poses might be known from calibration, but then the particular scene shot on such a rig, could be reconstructed without COLMAP or other structure-from-motion tools, if I understand it correctly.
> We initialize our samples either randomly or from point clouds, typically from Structure-from-Motion (SfM) as in 3DGS