# TESGNN: Temporal Equivariant Scene Graph Neural Networks for Efficient and Robust Multi-View 3D Scene Understanding

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.10509 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.10509/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 49 of its 69 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 15 Nov 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 49)

- [Sentence-BERT: Sentence Embeddings using Siamese BERT-Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.10084/) (2019)
- [Graph Attention Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.10903/) (2017)
- [PointNet: Deep Learning on Point Sets for 3D Classification and Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.00593/) (2016)
- [ScanNet: Richly-annotated 3D Reconstructions of Indoor Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.04405/) (2017)
- [node2vec: Scalable Feature Learning for Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.00653/) (2016)
- [DeepWalk: Online Learning of Social Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1403.6652/) (2014)
- [Spatio-Temporal Graph Convolutional Networks: A Deep Learning Framework for Traffic Forecasting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.04875/) (2017)
- [E(n) Equivariant Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.09844/) (2021)
- [ORB-SLAM3: An Accurate Open-Source Library for Visual, Visual-Inertial and Multi-Map SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.11898/) (2020)
- [Tensor field networks: Rotation- and translation-equivariant neural networks for 3D point clouds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.08219/) (2018)
- [SE(3)-Transformers: 3D Roto-Translation Equivariant Attention Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.10503/) (2020)
- [Revisiting Point Cloud Classification: A New Benchmark Dataset and Classification Model on Real-World Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.04616/) (2019)
- [Temporal Graph Networks for Deep Learning on Dynamic Graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.10637/) (2020)
- [Graph Transformer Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.06455/) (2019)
- [LM-Nav: Robotic Navigation with Large Pre-Trained Models of Language, Vision, and Action](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.04429/) (2022)
- [Visual Language Maps for Robot Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.05714/) (2022)
- [Neural Relational Inference for Interacting Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.04687/) (2018)
- [3D Scene Graph: A Structure for Unified Semantics, 3D Space, and Camera](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.02527/) (2019)
- [Equiformer: Equivariant Graph Attention Transformer for 3D Atomistic Graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.11990/) (2022)
- [Cormorant: Covariant Molecular Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.04015/) (2019)
- [Equivariant Flows: Exact Likelihood Generative Learning for Symmetric Densities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.02425/) (2020)
- [Generalizing Convolutional Neural Networks for Equivariance to Lie Groups on Arbitrary Continuous Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.12880/) (2020)
- [Efficient Natural Language Response Suggestion for Smart Reply](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.00652/) (2017)
- [Learning 3D Semantic Scene Graphs from 3D Indoor Reconstructions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.03967/) (2020)
- [Network Embedding as Matrix Factorization: Unifying DeepWalk, LINE, PTE, and node2vec](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.02971/) (2017)
- [RIO: 3D Object Instance Re-Localization in Changing Indoor Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.06109/) (2019)
- [Pure Transformers are Powerful Graph Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.02505/) (2022)
- [SceneGraphFusion: Incremental 3D Scene Graph Prediction from RGB-D Sequences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14898/) (2021)
- [A Comprehensive Survey of Scene Graphs: Generation and Application](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.01111/) (2021)
- [SGTR: End-to-end Scene Graph Generation with Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.12970/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [DeWorldSG: Depth-Aware 3D Semantic Scene Graph Generation via World-Model Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.00889/) (2026)
- [SmallPlan: Leverage Small Language Models for Sequential Path Planning with Simulation-Powered, LLM-Guided Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.00831/) (2025)
- [2D Spatial Reasoning with Adaptive Neural Cellular Automata](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.08518/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Scene graphs have proven to be highly effective for various scene understanding tasks due to their compact and explicit representation of relational information. However, current methods often overlook the critical importance of preserving symmetry when generating scene graphs from 3D point clouds, which can lead to reduced accuracy and robustness, particularly when dealing with noisy, multi-view data. Furthermore, a major limitation of prior approaches is the lack of temporal modeling to capture time-dependent relationships among dynamically evolving entities in a scene. To address these challenges, we propose Temporal Equivariant Scene Graph Neural Network (TESGNN), consisting of two key components: (1) an Equivariant Scene Graph Neural Network (ESGNN), which extracts information from 3D point clouds to generate scene graph while preserving crucial symmetry properties, and (2) a Temporal Graph Matching Network, which fuses scene graphs generated by ESGNN across multiple time sequences into a unified global representation using an approximate graph-matching algorithm. Our combined architecture TESGNN shown to be effective compared to existing methods in scene graph generation, achieving higher accuracy and faster training convergence. Moreover, we show that leveraging the symmetry-preserving property produces a more stable and accurate global scene representation compared to existing approaches. Finally, it is computationally efficient and easily implementable using existing frameworks, making it well-suited for real-time applications in robotics and computer vision. This approach paves the way for more robust and scalable solutions to complex multi-view scene understanding challenges. Our source code is publicly available at: https://github.com/HySonLab/TESGraph