# Aether: Geometric-Aware Unified World Modeling

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.18945 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.18945/

## Key facts

- Cited by 97 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Embodied and robot world models, one of 11 directions in World models.
- Builds on 63 of its 87 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 24 Mar 2025.

## Placed in

- World models / [Embodied and robot world models](https://mlsanity.com/wm/embodied-and-robot-world-models/)
- LLM reasoning / [Spatial and embodied reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/lr/spatial-and-embodied-reasoning/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 63)

- [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)
- [Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.09748/) (2022)
- [RoFormer: Enhanced Transformer with Rotary Position Embedding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.09864/) (2021)
- [GPT-4o System Card](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.21276/) (2024)
- [Improved Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.09672/) (2021)
- [ScanNet: Richly-annotated 3D Reconstructions of Indoor Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.04405/) (2017)
- [Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15127/) (2023)
- [RAFT: Recurrent All-Pairs Field Transforms for Optical Flow](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.12039/) (2020)
- [CogVideoX: Text-to-Video Diffusion Models with An Expert Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.06072/) (2024)
- [VBench: Comprehensive Benchmark Suite for Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17982/) (2023)
- [HunyuanVideo: A Systematic Framework For Large Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.03603/) (2024)
- [DUSt3R: Geometric 3D Vision Made Easy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.14132/) (2023)
- [World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.10122/) (2018)
- [Towards Robust Monocular Depth Estimation: Mixing Datasets for Zero-shot Cross-dataset Transfer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.01341/) (2019)
- [SuperGlue: Learning Feature Matching with Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.11763/) (2019)
- [Depth Anything: Unleashing the Power of Large-Scale Unlabeled Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.10891/) (2024)
- [SuperPoint: Self-Supervised Interest Point Detection and Description](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.07629/) (2017)
- [CogVideo: Large-scale Pretraining for Text-to-Video Generation via Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.15868/) (2022)
- [Grounding Image Matching in 3D with MASt3R](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09756/) (2024)
- [DPM-Solver++: Fast Solver for Guided Sampling of Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.01095/) (2022)
- [Grounded SAM: Assembling Open-World Models for Diverse Visual Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.14159/) (2024)
- [MVSNet: Depth Inference for Unstructured Multi-view Stereo](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.02505/) (2018)
- [PyTorch FSDP: Experiences on Scaling Fully Sharded Data Parallel](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.11277/) (2023)
- [LTX-Video: Realtime Video Latent Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.00103/) (2024)
- [MotionCtrl: A Unified and Flexible Motion Controller for Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.03641/) (2023)
- [Continuous 3D Perception Model with Persistent State](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.12387/) (2025)
- [MonoSDF: Exploring Monocular Geometric Cues for Neural Implicit Surface Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.00665/) (2022)
- [MonST3R: A Simple Approach for Estimating Geometry in the Presence of Motion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.03825/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 97)

- [π3: Permutation-Equivariant Visual Geometry Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.13347/) (2025)
- [ViPE: Video Pose Engine for 3D Geometric Perception](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.10934/) (2025)
- [GigaWorld-Policy: An Efficient Action-Centered World--Action Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.17240/) (2026)
- [TTT3R: 3D Reconstruction as Test-Time Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.26645/) (2025)
- [Controllable Video Generation: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.16869/) (2025)
- [Geometry Forcing: Marrying Video Diffusion and 3D Representation for Consistent World Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.07982/) (2025)
- [TesserAct: Learning 4D Embodied World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.20995/) (2025)
- [A Comprehensive Survey on World Models for Embodied AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.16732/) (2025)
- [Geo4D: Leveraging Video Generators for Geometric 4D Scene Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.07961/) (2025)
- [OmniWorld: A Multi-Domain and Multi-Modal Dataset for 4D World Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.12201/) (2025)
- [SANA-WM: Efficient Minute-Scale World Modeling with Hybrid Linear Diffusion Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.15178/) (2026)
- [SceneGen: Single-Image 3D Scene Generation in One Feedforward Pass](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.15769/) (2025)
- [A Survey: Learning Embodied Intelligence from Physical Simulators and World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.00917/) (2025)
- [MindJourney: Test-Time Scaling with World Models for Spatial Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.12508/) (2025)
- [CoMo: Learning Continuous Latent Motion from Internet Videos for Scalable Robot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.17006/) (2025)
- [DeepVerse: 4D Autoregressive Video Generation as a World Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.01103/) (2025)
- [RoboScape: Physics-informed Embodied World Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.23135/) (2025)
- [VRAG: Learning World Models for Interactive Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.21996/) (2025)
- [WinT3R: Window-Based Streaming Reconstruction with Camera Token Pool](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.05296/) (2025)
- [Multimodal Spatial Reasoning in the Large Model Era: A Survey and Benchmarks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.25760/) (2025)
- [Gen3R: 3D Scene Generation Meets Feed-Forward Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.04090/) (2026)
- [VerseCrafter: Dynamic Realistic Video World Model with 4D Geometric Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.05138/) (2026)
- [Advances in Feed-Forward 3D Reconstruction and View Synthesis: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.14501/) (2025)
- [PlayerOne: Egocentric World Simulator](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.09995/) (2025)
- [AMB3R: Accurate Feed-forward Metric-scale 3D Reconstruction with Backend](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.20343/) (2025)
- [iTACO: Interactable Digital Twins of Articulated Objects from Casually Captured RGBD Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.08334/) (2025)
- [Dexterous World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.17907/) (2025)
- [WorldStereo: Bridging Camera-Guided Video Generation and Scene Reconstruction via 3D Geometric Memories](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.02049/) (2026)
- [A Step Toward World Models: A Survey on Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.02097/) (2025)
- [Simulating the Visual World with Artificial Intelligence: A Roadmap](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.08585/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The integration of geometric reconstruction and generative modeling remains a critical challenge in developing AI systems capable of human-like spatial reasoning. This paper proposes Aether, a unified framework that enables geometry-aware reasoning in world models by jointly optimizing three core capabilities: (1) 4D dynamic reconstruction, (2) action-conditioned video prediction, and (3) goal-conditioned visual planning. Through task-interleaved feature learning, Aether achieves synergistic knowledge sharing across reconstruction, prediction, and planning objectives. Building upon video generation models, our framework demonstrates zero-shot synthetic-to-real generalization despite never observing real-world data during training. Furthermore, our approach achieves zero-shot generalization in both action following and reconstruction tasks, thanks to its intrinsic geometric modeling. Notably, even without real-world data, its reconstruction performance is comparable with or even better than that of domain-specific models. Additionally, Aether employs camera trajectories as geometry-informed action spaces, enabling effective action-conditioned prediction and visual planning. We hope our work inspires the community to explore new frontiers in physically-reasonable world modeling and its applications.