MuLan: Multimodal-LLM Agent for Progressive and Interactive Multi-Object Diffusion
On the map: Diffusion models → Image generation, text-to-image and editing
also in 1 more
Abstract (arXiv)
Existing text-to-image models still struggle to generate images of multiple objects, especially in handling their spatial positions, relative sizes, overlapping, and attribute bindings. To efficiently address these challenges, we develop a training-free Multimodal-LLM agent (MuLan), as a human painter, that can progressively generate multi-object with intricate planning and feedback control. MuLan harnesses a large language model (LLM) to decompose a prompt to a sequence of sub-tasks, each generating only one object by stable diffusion, conditioned on previously generated objects. Unlike existing LLM-grounded methods, MuLan only produces a high-level plan at the beginning while the exact size and location of each object are determined upon each sub-task by an LLM and attention guidance. Moreover, MuLan adopts a vision-language model (VLM) to provide feedback to the image generated in each sub-task and control the diffusion model to re-generate the image if it violates the original prompt. Hence, each model in every step of MuLan only needs to address an easy sub-task it is specialized for. The multi-step process also allows human users to monitor the generation process and make preferred changes at any intermediate step via text prompts, thereby improving the human-AI collaboration experience. We collect 200 prompts containing multi-objects with spatial relationships and attribute bindings from different benchmarks to evaluate MuLan. The results demonstrate the superiority of MuLan in generating multiple objects over baselines and its creativity when collaborating with human users. The code is available at https://github.com/measure-infinity/mulan-code.
Key facts. Cited by 10 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Image generation, text-to-image and editing, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 23 of its 27 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 20 Feb 2024.
Builds on
23 of 27 references.
Closest ancestors · 9
Same direction, newest first
- 2024Mastering Text-to-Image Diffusion: Recaptioning, Planning, and Generating with Multimodal LLMs22 Jan
- 2023Ranni: Taming Text-to-Image Diffusion for Accurate Instruction Following28 Nov
- 2023Self-correcting LLM-controlled Diffusion Models27 Nov
- 2023LLM-grounded Diffusion: Enhancing Prompt Understanding of Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Large Language Models23 May
- 2023GLIGEN: Open-Set Grounded Text-to-Image Generation17 Jan
- 2022Training-Free Structured Diffusion Guidance for Compositional Text-to-Image Synthesis9 Dec
- 2022Compositional Visual Generation with Composable Diffusion Models3 Jun
- 2022Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding23 May
- 2021GLIDE: Towards Photorealistic Image Generation and Editing with Text-Guided Diffusion Models20 Dec
Other references · 14
- 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 20,851
- 2021High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 18,694
- 2023GPT-4 Technical Reportcited by 18,132
- 2020Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equationscited by 8,964
- 2015Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamicscited by 7,005
- 2023Improved Baselines with Visual Instruction Tuningcited by 4,362
- 2023SDXL: Improving Latent Diffusion Models for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 4,290
- 2021CLIPScore: A Reference-free Evaluation Metric for Image Captioningcited by 2,388
- 2023PixArt-α: Fast Training of Diffusion Transformer for Photorealistic Text-to-Image Synthesiscited by 854
- 2023AnyDoor: Zero-shot Object-level Image Customizationcited by 411
- 2023LayoutGPT: Compositional Visual Planning and Generation with Large Language Modelscited by 337
- 2023Training-Free Layout Control with Cross-Attention Guidancecited by 312
2 more
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Citing papers per year: 2024: 1; 2025: 4; 2026: 5.
10 papers.
- 2025Advances and Challenges in Foundation Agents: From Brain-Inspired Intelligence to Evolutionary, Collaborative, and Safe Systemscited by 125
- 2024SPAgent: Adaptive Task Decomposition and Model Selection for General Video Generation and Editingcited by 11
- 2025Extremely low-bitrate Image Compression Semantically Disentangled by LMMs from a Human Perception Perspectivecited by 4
- 2025Fine-Grained Alignment and Noise Refinement for Compositional Text-to-Image Generationcited by 4
- 2025FaSTA^*: Fast-Slow Toolpath Agent with Subroutine Mining for Efficient Multi-turn Image Editingcited by 3
- 2026MoGen: A Unified Collaborative Framework for Controllable Multi-Object Image Generationcited by 0
- 2026ATHENA: Adaptive Test-Time Steering for Improving Count Fidelity in Diffusion Modelscited by 0
- 2026STEDiff: Strengthening Text Embedding for Text-to-Image Alignment in Diffusion Modelcited by 0
- 2026MultiCompose: Multi-Concept Personalized Composition with Per-Subject Attribute Bindingcited by 0
- 2026Agentic Visual Generation: From Generative Models to Agentic Controlcited by 0
- 2026Agentic Visual Generation: From Generative Models to Agentic Control6 Sep 2026
- 2026MultiCompose: Multi-Concept Personalized Composition with Per-Subject Attribute Binding4 Aug 2026
- 2026STEDiff: Strengthening Text Embedding for Text-to-Image Alignment in Diffusion Model9 Jun 2026
- 2026ATHENA: Adaptive Test-Time Steering for Improving Count Fidelity in Diffusion Models20 Mar 2026
- 2026MoGen: A Unified Collaborative Framework for Controllable Multi-Object Image Generation9 Jan 2026
- 2025FaSTA^*: Fast-Slow Toolpath Agent with Subroutine Mining for Efficient Multi-turn Image Editing26 Jun 2025
- 2025Advances and Challenges in Foundation Agents: From Brain-Inspired Intelligence to Evolutionary, Collaborative, and Safe Systems31 Mar 2025
- 2025Fine-Grained Alignment and Noise Refinement for Compositional Text-to-Image Generation9 Mar 2025
- 2025Extremely low-bitrate Image Compression Semantically Disentangled by LMMs from a Human Perception Perspective1 Mar 2025
- 2024SPAgent: Adaptive Task Decomposition and Model Selection for General Video Generation and Editing28 Nov 2024
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