# LayoutDiT: Exploring Content-Graphic Balance in Layout Generation with Diffusion Transformer

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.15233 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.15233/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Image generation, text-to-image and editing, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 34 of its 44 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 21 Jul 2024.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Image generation, text-to-image and editing](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/image-generation-text-to-image-and-editing/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 34)

- [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)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [BLIP-2: Bootstrapping Language-Image Pre-training with Frozen Image Encoders and Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.12597/) (2023)
- [Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.00667/) (2022)
- [Scaling Rectified Flow Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.03206/) (2024)
- [Structured Denoising Diffusion Models in Discrete State-Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.03006/) (2021)
- [Resolution-robust Large Mask Inpainting with Fourier Convolutions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.07161/) (2021)
- [GAN Inversion: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.05278/) (2021)
- [PubLayNet: largest dataset ever for document layout analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.07836/) (2019)
- [LayoutDM: Discrete Diffusion Model for Controllable Layout Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08137/) (2023)
- [LayoutGAN: Generating Graphic Layouts with Wireframe Discriminators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.06767/) (2019)
- [LayoutTransformer: Layout Generation and Completion with Self-attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.14615/) (2020)
- [Highly Accurate Dichotomous Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.03041/) (2022)
- [Variational Transformer Networks for Layout Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.02416/) (2021)
- [Neural Design Network: Graphic Layout Generation with Constraints](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.09421/) (2019)
- [Constrained Graphic Layout Generation via Latent Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.00871/) (2021)
- [BLT: Bidirectional Layout Transformer for Controllable Layout Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.05112/) (2021)
- [PosterLayout: A New Benchmark and Approach for Content-aware Visual-Textual Presentation Layout](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.15937/) (2023)
- [Composition-aware Graphic Layout GAN for Visual-textual Presentation Designs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.00303/) (2022)
- [LayoutDM: Transformer-based Diffusion Model for Layout Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.02567/) (2023)
- [READ: Recursive Autoencoders for Document Layout Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.00302/) (2019)
- [LayoutFormer++: Conditional Graphic Layout Generation via Constraint Serialization and Decoding Space Restriction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.08037/) (2022)
- [Unifying Layout Generation with a Decoupled Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.05049/) (2023)
- [LayoutDiffusion: Improving Graphic Layout Generation by Discrete Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11589/) (2023)
- [Relation-Aware Diffusion Model for Controllable Poster Layout Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.09086/) (2023)
- [Retrieval-Augmented Layout Transformer for Content-Aware Layout Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.13602/) (2023)
- [Progressive Feature Polishing Network for Salient Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.05942/) (2019)
- [Geometry Aligned Variational Transformer for Image-conditioned Layout Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.00852/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [UniLayDiff: A Unified Diffusion Transformer for Content-Aware Layout Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.08897/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Layout generation is a foundation task of graphic design, which requires the integration of visual aesthetics and harmonious expression of content delivery. However, existing methods still face challenges in generating precise and visually appealing layouts, including blocking, overlapping, small-sized, or spatial misalignment. We found that these methods overlook the crucial balance between learning content-aware and graphic-aware features. This oversight results in their limited ability to model the graphic structure of layouts and generate reasonable layout arrangements. To address these challenges, we introduce LayoutDiT, an effective framework that balances content and graphic features to generate high-quality, visually appealing layouts. Specifically, we first design an adaptive factor that optimizes the model's awareness of the layout generation space, balancing the model's performance in both content and graphic aspects. Secondly, we introduce a graphic condition, the saliency bounding box, to bridge the modality difference between images in the visual domain and layouts in the geometric parameter domain. In addition, we adapt a diffusion transformer model as the backbone, whose powerful generative capability ensures the quality of layout generation. Benefiting from the properties of diffusion models, our method excels in constrained settings without introducing additional constraint modules. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that our method achieves superior performance in both constrained and unconstrained settings, significantly outperforming existing methods.