# ComboStoc: Combinatorial Stochasticity for Diffusion Generative Models

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.13729 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.13729/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Diffusion foundations and sampling, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 30 of its 57 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 22 May 2024.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Diffusion foundations and sampling](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/diffusion-foundations-and-sampling/)

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

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01703/) (2019)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13456/) (2020)
- [Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.09748/) (2022)
- [Flow Matching for Generative Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.02747/) (2022)
- [Flow Straight and Fast: Learning to Generate and Transfer Data with Rectified Flow](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.03003/) (2022)
- [SDEdit: Guided Image Synthesis and Editing with Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.01073/) (2021)
- [Consistency Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.01469/) (2023)
- [RePaint: Inpainting using Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.09865/) (2022)
- [Building Normalizing Flows with Stochastic Interpolants](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.15571/) (2022)
- [Stochastic Interpolants: A Unifying Framework for Flows and Diffusions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08797/) (2023)
- [SiT: Exploring Flow and Diffusion-based Generative Models with Scalable Interpolant Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.08740/) (2024)
- [On Distillation of Guided Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03142/) (2022)
- [PartNet: A Large-scale Benchmark for Fine-grained and Hierarchical Part-level 3D Object Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.02713/) (2018)
- [3DShape2VecSet: A 3D Shape Representation for Neural Fields and Generative Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.11445/) (2023)
- [DiffDock: Diffusion Steps, Twists, and Turns for Molecular Docking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.01776/) (2022)
- [MDTv2: Masked Diffusion Transformer is a Strong Image Synthesizer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.14389/) (2023)
- [Efficient Diffusion Training via Min-SNR Weighting Strategy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.09556/) (2023)
- [FIFO-Diffusion: Generating Infinite Videos from Text without Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.11473/) (2024)
- [Locally Attentional SDF Diffusion for Controllable 3D Shape Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.04461/) (2023)
- [Protein structure generation via folding diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.15611/) (2022)
- [Generative 3D Part Assembly via Dynamic Graph Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.07793/) (2020)
- [StructureNet: Hierarchical Graph Networks for 3D Shape Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.00575/) (2019)
- [Diffusion Models With Learned Adaptive Noise](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.13236/) (2023)
- [Addressing Negative Transfer in Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.00354/) (2023)
- [Differential Diffusion: Giving Each Pixel Its Strength](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.00950/) (2023)
- [StructRe: Rewriting for Structured Shape Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17510/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [MMGen: Unified Multi-modal Image Generation and Understanding in One Go](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.20644/) (2025)
- [MeshMosaic: Scaling Artist Mesh Generation via Local-to-Global Assembly](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.19995/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In this paper, we study an under-explored but important factor of diffusion generative models, i.e., the combinatorial complexity. Data samples are generally high-dimensional, and for various structured generation tasks, additional attributes are combined to associate with data samples. We show that the space spanned by the combination of dimensions and attributes can be insufficiently covered by existing training schemes of diffusion generative models, potentially limiting test time performance. We present a simple fix to this problem by constructing stochastic processes that fully exploit the combinatorial structures, hence the name ComboStoc. Using this simple strategy, we show that network training is significantly accelerated across diverse data modalities, including images and 3D structured shapes. Moreover, ComboStoc enables a new way of test time generation which uses asynchronous time steps for different dimensions and attributes, thus allowing for varying degrees of control over them. Our code is available at: https://github.com/Xrvitd/ComboStoc
