# Holodeck: Language Guided Generation of 3D Embodied AI Environments

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.09067 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.09067/

## Key facts

- Cited by 268 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Video-generation world models and simulators, one of 11 directions in World models.
- Builds on 43 of its 58 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 14 Dec 2023.

## Placed in

- World models / [Video-generation world models and simulators](https://mlsanity.com/wm/video-generation-world-models-and-simulators/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 43)

- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [GPT-4 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08774/) (2023)
- [Sentence-BERT: Sentence Embeddings using Siamese BERT-Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.10084/) (2019)
- [LAION-5B: An open large-scale dataset for training next generation image-text models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.08402/) (2022)
- [DreamFusion: Text-to-3D using 2D Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14988/) (2022)
- [Emergent Abilities of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.07682/) (2022)
- [CLIPScore: A Reference-free Evaluation Metric for Image Captioning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.08718/) (2021)
- [Objaverse: A Universe of Annotated 3D Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.08051/) (2022)
- [Magic3D: High-Resolution Text-to-3D Content Creation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.10440/) (2022)
- [Habitat: A Platform for Embodied AI Research](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.01201/) (2019)
- [AI2-THOR: An Interactive 3D Environment for Visual AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.05474/) (2017)
- [Habitat-Matterport 3D Dataset (HM3D): 1000 Large-scale 3D Environments for Embodied AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.08238/) (2021)
- [Learning a Probabilistic Latent Space of Object Shapes via 3D Generative-Adversarial Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.07584/) (2016)
- [3D Shape Generation and Completion through Point-Voxel Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.03670/) (2021)
- [Habitat 2.0: Training Home Assistants to Rearrange their Habitat](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.14405/) (2021)
- [Latent-NeRF for Shape-Guided Generation of 3D Shapes and Textures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.07600/) (2022)
- [PointFlow: 3D Point Cloud Generation with Continuous Normalizing Flows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.12320/) (2019)
- [Gibson Env: Real-World Perception for Embodied Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.10654/) (2018)
- [VirtualHome: Simulating Household Activities via Programs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.07011/) (2018)
- [3D-FRONT: 3D Furnished Rooms with layOuts and semaNTics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.09127/) (2020)
- [ProcTHOR: Large-Scale Embodied AI Using Procedural Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.06994/) (2022)
- [LayoutGPT: Compositional Visual Planning and Generation with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.15393/) (2023)
- [ThreeDWorld: A Platform for Interactive Multi-Modal Physical Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.04954/) (2020)
- [Text2Room: Extracting Textured 3D Meshes from 2D Text-to-Image Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11989/) (2023)
- [ObjectNav Revisited: On Evaluation of Embodied Agents Navigating to Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.13171/) (2020)
- [RoboGen: Towards Unleashing Infinite Data for Automated Robot Learning via Generative Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.01455/) (2023)
- [ATISS: Autoregressive Transformers for Indoor Scene Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.03675/) (2021)
- [RoboTHOR: An Open Simulation-to-Real Embodied AI Platform](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.06799/) (2020)
- [Simple but Effective: CLIP Embeddings for Embodied AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.09888/) (2021)
- [NerfDiff: Single-image View Synthesis with NeRF-guided Distillation from 3D-aware Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.10109/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 268)

- [Aligning Cyber Space with Physical World: A Comprehensive Survey on Embodied AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.06886/) (2024)
- [Understanding World or Predicting Future? A Comprehensive Survey of World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.14499/) (2024)
- [URDFormer: A Pipeline for Constructing Articulated Simulation Environments from Real-World Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.11656/) (2024)
- [GALA3D: Towards Text-to-3D Complex Scene Generation via Layout-guided Generative Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.07207/) (2024)
- [LayoutVLM: Differentiable Optimization of 3D Layout via Vision-Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.02193/) (2024)
- [Sparc3D: Sparse Representation and Construction for High-Resolution 3D Shapes Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.14521/) (2025)
- [AgentGen: Enhancing Planning Abilities for Large Language Model based Agent via Environment and Task Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.00764/) (2024)
- [Towards Long-Horizon Vision-Language Navigation: Platform, Benchmark and Method](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.09082/) (2024)
- [Scenethesis: A Language and Vision Agentic Framework for 3D Scene Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.02836/) (2025)
- [3D and 4D World Modeling: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.07996/) (2025)
- [Human-Object Interaction from Human-Level Instructions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.17840/) (2024)
- [PoliFormer: Scaling On-Policy RL with Transformers Results in Masterful Navigators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.20083/) (2024)
- [EmbodiedEval: Evaluate Multimodal LLMs as Embodied Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.11858/) (2025)
- [SceneWeaver: All-in-One 3D Scene Synthesis with an Extensible and Self-Reflective Agent](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.20414/) (2025)
- [SceneGen: Single-Image 3D Scene Generation in One Feedforward Pass](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.15769/) (2025)
- [NavMorph: A Self-Evolving World Model for Vision-and-Language Navigation in Continuous Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.23468/) (2025)
- [When LLMs step into the 3D World: A Survey and Meta-Analysis of 3D Tasks via Multi-modal Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.10255/) (2024)
- [Articulate AnyMesh: Open-Vocabulary 3D Articulated Objects Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.02590/) (2025)
- [From Multimodal LLMs to Generalist Embodied Agents: Methods and Lessons](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.08442/) (2024)
- [Architect: Generating Vivid and Interactive 3D Scenes with Hierarchical 2D Inpainting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.09823/) (2024)
- [3D-GRAND: A Million-Scale Dataset for 3D-LLMs with Better Grounding and Less Hallucination](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.05132/) (2024)
- [Visual Large Language Models for Generalized and Specialized Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.02765/) (2025)
- [Multi-agent Embodied AI: Advances and Future Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.05108/) (2025)
- [LLMs Meet Multimodal Generation and Editing: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.19334/) (2024)
- [LLplace: The 3D Indoor Scene Layout Generation and Editing via Large Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.03866/) (2024)
- [Disentangled 3D Scene Generation with Layout Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.16936/) (2024)
- [FlashWorld: High-quality 3D Scene Generation within Seconds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.13678/) (2025)
- [BlenderGym: Benchmarking Foundational Model Systems for Graphics Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.01786/) (2025)
- [Global-Local Tree Search in VLMs for 3D Indoor Scene Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.18476/) (2025)
- [ArtiScene: Language-Driven Artistic 3D Scene Generation Through Image Intermediary](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.00742/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

3D simulated environments play a critical role in Embodied AI, but their creation requires expertise and extensive manual effort, restricting their diversity and scope. To mitigate this limitation, we present Holodeck, a system that generates 3D environments to match a user-supplied prompt fully automatedly. Holodeck can generate diverse scenes, e.g., arcades, spas, and museums, adjust the designs for styles, and can capture the semantics of complex queries such as "apartment for a researcher with a cat" and "office of a professor who is a fan of Star Wars". Holodeck leverages a large language model (i.e., GPT-4) for common sense knowledge about what the scene might look like and uses a large collection of 3D assets from Objaverse to populate the scene with diverse objects. To address the challenge of positioning objects correctly, we prompt GPT-4 to generate spatial relational constraints between objects and then optimize the layout to satisfy those constraints. Our large-scale human evaluation shows that annotators prefer Holodeck over manually designed procedural baselines in residential scenes and that Holodeck can produce high-quality outputs for diverse scene types. We also demonstrate an exciting application of Holodeck in Embodied AI, training agents to navigate in novel scenes like music rooms and daycares without human-constructed data, which is a significant step forward in developing general-purpose embodied agents.