# Driving View Synthesis on Free-form Trajectories with Generative Prior

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.01717 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.01717/

## Key facts

- Cited by 11 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Diffusion and flow policies for robotics, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 38 of its 49 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 2 Dec 2024.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Diffusion and flow policies for robotics](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/diffusion-and-flow-policies-for-robotics/)
- End-to-end autonomous driving / [Generative simulation for driving](https://mlsanity.com/driving/generative-simulation-for-driving/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 38)

- [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)
- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [Faster R-CNN: Towards Real-Time Object Detection with Region Proposal Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.01497/) (2015)
- [Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13456/) (2020)
- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15127/) (2023)
- [Scalability in Perception for Autonomous Driving: Waymo Open Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.04838/) (2019)
- [Consistency Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.01469/) (2023)
- [Block-NeRF: Scalable Large Scene Neural View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.05263/) (2022)
- [GAIA-1: A Generative World Model for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.17080/) (2023)
- [MonST3R: A Simple Approach for Estimating Geometry in the Presence of Motion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.03825/) (2024)
- [ViewCrafter: Taming Video Diffusion Models for High-fidelity Novel View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.02048/) (2024)
- [Vista: A Generalizable Driving World Model with High Fidelity and Versatile Controllability](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.17398/) (2024)
- [Driving into the Future: Multiview Visual Forecasting and Planning with World Model for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17918/) (2023)
- [ReconFusion: 3D Reconstruction with Diffusion Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02981/) (2023)
- [DriveDreamer: Towards Real-world-driven World Models for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.09777/) (2023)
- [MagicDrive: Street View Generation with Diverse 3D Geometry Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.02601/) (2023)
- [Street Gaussians: Modeling Dynamic Urban Scenes with Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.01339/) (2024)
- [EmerNeRF: Emergent Spatial-Temporal Scene Decomposition via Self-Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.02077/) (2023)
- [DriveDreamer-2: LLM-Enhanced World Models for Diverse Driving Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.06845/) (2024)
- [PandaSet: Advanced Sensor Suite Dataset for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.12610/) (2021)
- [SUDS: Scalable Urban Dynamic Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.14536/) (2023)
- [Periodic Vibration Gaussian: Dynamic Urban Scene Reconstruction and Real-time Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.18561/) (2023)
- [ReconX: Reconstruct Any Scene from Sparse Views with Video Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.16767/) (2024)
- [DriveDreamer4D: World Models Are Effective Data Machines for 4D Driving Scene Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.13571/) (2024)
- [S-NeRF: Neural Radiance Fields for Street Views](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.00749/) (2023)
- [3DGS-Enhancer: Enhancing Unbounded 3D Gaussian Splatting with View-consistent 2D Diffusion Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.16266/) (2024)
- [textitS3Gaussian: Self-Supervised Street Gaussians for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.20323/) (2024)
- [WoVoGen: World Volume-aware Diffusion for Controllable Multi-camera Driving Scene Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02934/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 11 of 11)

- [ReconDreamer++: Harmonizing Generative and Reconstructive Models for Driving Scene Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.18438/) (2025)
- [OmniNWM: Omniscient Driving Navigation World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.18313/) (2025)
- [Bench2Drive-R: Turning Real World Data into Reactive Closed-Loop Autonomous Driving Benchmark by Generative Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.09647/) (2024)
- [RealEngine: Simulating Autonomous Driving in Realistic Context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.16902/) (2025)
- [Generative AI for Autonomous Driving: Frontiers and Opportunities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.08854/) (2025)
- [From Articulated Kinematics to Routed Visual Control for Action-Conditioned Surgical Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.08712/) (2026)
- [I2V-GS: Infrastructure-to-Vehicle View Transformation with Gaussian Splatting for Autonomous Driving Data Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.23683/) (2025)
- [ArbiViewGen: Controllable Arbitrary Viewpoint Camera Data Generation for Autonomous Driving via Stable Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.05236/) (2025)
- [ViSE: A Systematic Approach to Vision-Only Street-View Extrapolation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.18341/) (2025)
- [ConFixGS: Learning to Fix Feedforward 3D Gaussian Splatting with Confidence-Aware Diffusion Priors in Driving Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.09688/) (2026)
- [PRG-Fusion: Orchestrating Generative Priors with Reconstruction Evidence for Driving View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.06948/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Driving view synthesis along free-form trajectories is essential for realistic driving simulations, enabling closed-loop evaluation of end-to-end driving policies. Existing methods excel at view interpolation along recorded paths but struggle to generalize to novel trajectories due to limited viewpoints in driving videos. To tackle this challenge, we propose DriveX, a novel free-form driving view synthesis framework, that progressively distills generative prior into the 3D Gaussian model during its optimization. Within this framework, we utilize a video diffusion model to refine the degraded novel trajectory renderings from the in-training Gaussian model, while the restored videos in turn serve as additional supervision for optimizing the 3D Gaussian. Concretely, we craft an inpainting-based video restoration task, which can disentangle the identification of degraded regions from the generative capability of the diffusion model and remove the need of simulating specific degraded pattern in the training of the diffusion model. To further enhance the consistency and fidelity of generated contents, the pseudo ground truth is progressively updated with gradually improved novel trajectory rendering, allowing both components to co-adapt and reinforce each other while minimizing the disruption on the optimization. By tightly integrating 3D scene representation with generative prior, DriveX achieves high-quality view synthesis beyond recorded trajectories in real time--unlocking new possibilities for flexible and realistic driving simulations on free-form trajectories.