# Nautilus: Locality-aware Autoencoder for Scalable Mesh Generation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.14317 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.14317/

## Key facts

- Cited by 18 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 46 of its 53 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 24 Jan 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 46)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [Neural Discrete Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.00937/) (2017)
- [Scaling Rectified Flow Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.03206/) (2024)
- [DreamFusion: Text-to-3D using 2D Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14988/) (2022)
- [DeepSDF: Learning Continuous Signed Distance Functions for Shape Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.05103/) (2019)
- [Magic3D: High-Resolution Text-to-3D Content Creation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.10440/) (2022)
- [ProlificDreamer: High-Fidelity and Diverse Text-to-3D Generation with Variational Score Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.16213/) (2023)
- [LRM: Large Reconstruction Model for Single Image to 3D](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.04400/) (2023)
- [DreamGaussian: Generative Gaussian Splatting for Efficient 3D Content Creation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.16653/) (2023)
- [LGM: Large Multi-View Gaussian Model for High-Resolution 3D Content Creation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.05054/) (2024)
- [Diffusion Probabilistic Models for 3D Point Cloud Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.01458/) (2021)
- [Point-E: A System for Generating 3D Point Clouds from Complex Prompts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.08751/) (2022)
- [Learning a Probabilistic Latent Space of Object Shapes via 3D Generative-Adversarial Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.07584/) (2016)
- [AtlasNet: A Papier-Mach'e Approach to Learning 3D Surface Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.05384/) (2018)
- [3D Shape Generation and Completion through Point-Voxel Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.03670/) (2021)
- [CLAY: A Controllable Large-scale Generative Model for Creating High-quality 3D Assets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.13897/) (2024)
- [InstantMesh: Efficient 3D Mesh Generation from a Single Image with Sparse-view Large Reconstruction Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.07191/) (2024)
- [PolyGen: An Autoregressive Generative Model of 3D Meshes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.10880/) (2020)
- [MeshGPT: Generating Triangle Meshes with Decoder-Only Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15475/) (2023)
- [LucidDreamer: Domain-free Generation of 3D Gaussian Splatting Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.13384/) (2023)
- [Michelangelo: Conditional 3D Shape Generation based on Shape-Image-Text Aligned Latent Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.17115/) (2023)
- [Direct3D: Scalable Image-to-3D Generation via 3D Latent Diffusion Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.14832/) (2024)
- [BSP-Net: Generating Compact Meshes via Binary Space Partitioning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.06971/) (2019)
- [XCube: Large-Scale 3D Generative Modeling using Sparse Voxel Hierarchies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.03806/) (2023)
- [MeshAnything: Artist-Created Mesh Generation with Autoregressive Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.10163/) (2024)
- [Generative and Discriminative Voxel Modeling with Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.04236/) (2016)
- [CraftsMan3D: High-fidelity Mesh Generation with 3D Native Generation and Interactive Geometry Refiner](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.14979/) (2024)
- [MeshAnything V2: Artist-Created Mesh Generation With Adjacent Mesh Tokenization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.02555/) (2024)
- [MeshXL: Neural Coordinate Field for Generative 3D Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.20853/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 18 of 18)

- [DeepMesh: Auto-Regressive Artist-mesh Creation with Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.15265/) (2025)
- [OmniPart: Part-Aware 3D Generation with Semantic Decoupling and Structural Cohesion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.06165/) (2025)
- [Mesh-RFT: Enhancing Mesh Generation via Fine-grained Reinforcement Fine-Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.16761/) (2025)
- [LL3M: Large Language 3D Modelers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.08228/) (2025)
- [FastMesh: Efficient Artistic Mesh Generation via Component Decoupling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.19188/) (2025)
- [iFlame: Interleaving Full and Linear Attention for Efficient Mesh Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.16653/) (2025)
- [QuadGPT: Native Quadrilateral Mesh Generation with Autoregressive Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.21420/) (2025)
- [MeshMosaic: Scaling Artist Mesh Generation via Local-to-Global Assembly](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.19995/) (2025)
- [Topology-Preserved Auto-regressive Mesh Generation in the Manner of Weaving Silk](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.02477/) (2025)
- [MeshFlow: Efficient Artistic Mesh Generation via MeshVAE and Flow-based Diffusion Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.04621/) (2026)
- [FACE: A Face-based Autoregressive Representation for High-Fidelity and Efficient Mesh Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.01515/) (2026)
- [MeshFlow: Mesh Generation with Equivariant Flow Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.23489/) (2026)
- [Strips as Tokens: Artist Mesh Generation with Native UV Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.09132/) (2026)
- [MeshWeaver: Sparse-Voxel-Guided Surface Weaving for Autoregressive Mesh Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.04688/) (2026)
- [TriFlow: Generating Artist-Like 3D Mesh Topology via Nearest-Vertex Vector Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.20131/) (2026)
- [EI-Part: Explode for Completion and Implode for Refinement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.14021/) (2026)
- [TOPOS: High-Fidelity and Efficient Industry-Grade 3D Head Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.14594/) (2026)
- [RADmesh: Remesh-Aware Mesh Deformation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.17182/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Triangle meshes are fundamental to 3D applications, enabling efficient modification and rasterization while maintaining compatibility with standard rendering pipelines. However, current automatic mesh generation methods typically rely on intermediate representations that lack the continuous surface quality inherent to meshes. Converting these representations into meshes produces dense, suboptimal outputs. Although recent autoregressive approaches demonstrate promise in directly modeling mesh vertices and faces, they are constrained by the limitation in face count, scalability, and structural fidelity. To address these challenges, we propose Nautilus, a locality-aware autoencoder for artist-like mesh generation that leverages the local properties of manifold meshes to achieve structural fidelity and efficient representation. Our approach introduces a novel tokenization algorithm that preserves face proximity relationships and compresses sequence length through locally shared vertices and edges, enabling the generation of meshes with an unprecedented scale of up to 5,000 faces. Furthermore, we develop a Dual-stream Point Conditioner that provides multi-scale geometric guidance, ensuring global consistency and local structural fidelity by capturing fine-grained geometric features. Extensive experiments demonstrate that Nautilus significantly outperforms state-of-the-art methods in both fidelity and scalability. The project page is at https://nautilusmeshgen.github.io.