# Non-rigid Relative Placement through 3D Dense Diffusion

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.19247 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.19247/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 31 of its 40 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 25 Oct 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 31)

- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05233/) (2021)
- [Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.03585/) (2015)
- [Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.06125/) (2022)
- [Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.09748/) (2022)
- [Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05543/) (2023)
- [Improved Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.09672/) (2021)
- [Diffusion Policy: Visuomotor Policy Learning via Action Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.04137/) (2023)
- [Grounded SAM: Assembling Open-World Models for Diverse Visual Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.14159/) (2024)
- [Diffusion Probabilistic Models for 3D Point Cloud Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.01458/) (2021)
- [LION: Latent Point Diffusion Models for 3D Shape Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.06978/) (2022)
- [3D Shape Generation and Completion through Point-Voxel Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.03670/) (2021)
- [Neural Descriptor Fields: SE(3)-Equivariant Object Representations for Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.05124/) (2021)
- [SpatialTracker: Tracking Any 2D Pixels in 3D Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.04319/) (2024)
- [Dense Object Nets: Learning Dense Visual Object Descriptors By and For Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.08756/) (2018)
- [FlingBot: The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Dynamic Manipulation for Cloth Unfolding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.03655/) (2021)
- [Learning to Rearrange Deformable Cables, Fabrics, and Bags with Goal-Conditioned Transporter Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.03385/) (2020)
- [Learning to Manipulate Deformable Objects without Demonstrations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.13439/) (2019)
- [EquiBot: SIM(3)-Equivariant Diffusion Policy for Generalizable and Data Efficient Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.01479/) (2024)
- [Learning Visible Connectivity Dynamics for Cloth Smoothing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.10389/) (2021)
- [FabricFlowNet: Bimanual Cloth Manipulation with a Flow-based Policy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.05623/) (2021)
- [TAX-Pose: Task-Specific Cross-Pose Estimation for Robot Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.09325/) (2022)
- [EquivAct: SIM(3)-Equivariant Visuomotor Policies beyond Rigid Object Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.16050/) (2023)
- [DiffFacto: Controllable Part-Based 3D Point Cloud Generation with Cross Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.01921/) (2023)
- [Shelving, Stacking, Hanging: Relational Pose Diffusion for Multi-modal Rearrangement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.04751/) (2023)
- [DextAIRity: Deformable Manipulation Can be a Breeze](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.01197/) (2022)
- [AutoBag: Learning to Open Plastic Bags and Insert Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.17217/) (2022)
- [Bag All You Need: Learning a Generalizable Bagging Strategy for Heterogeneous Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.09997/) (2022)
- [Learning Closed-loop Dough Manipulation Using a Differentiable Reset Module](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.04638/) (2022)
- [Contact-rich SE(3)-Equivariant Robot Manipulation Task Learning via Geometric Impedance Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.14984/) (2023)

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

- [H2OFlow: Grounding Human-Object Affordances with 3D Generative Models and Dense Diffused Flows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.21769/) (2025)
- [Geometry-Guided Modeling of Foundation Features Enables Generalizable Object Shape Deformation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.29661/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The task of "relative placement" is to predict the placement of one object in relation to another, e.g. placing a mug onto a mug rack. Through explicit object-centric geometric reasoning, recent methods for relative placement have made tremendous progress towards data-efficient learning for robot manipulation while generalizing to unseen task variations. However, they have yet to represent deformable transformations, despite the ubiquity of non-rigid bodies in real world settings. As a first step towards bridging this gap, we propose ``cross-displacement" - an extension of the principles of relative placement to geometric relationships between deformable objects - and present a novel vision-based method to learn cross-displacement through dense diffusion. To this end, we demonstrate our method's ability to generalize to unseen object instances, out-of-distribution scene configurations, and multimodal goals on multiple highly deformable tasks (both in simulation and in the real world) beyond the scope of prior works. Supplementary information and videos can be found at https://sites.google.com/view/tax3d-corl-2024 .