# Conditional neural field for spatial dimension reduction of turbulence data: a comparison study

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.25135 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.25135/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 18 of its 53 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 29 Oct 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 18 of 18)

- [DeepSDF: Learning Continuous Signed Distance Functions for Shape Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.05103/) (2019)
- [Implicit Neural Representations with Periodic Activation Functions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.09661/) (2020)
- [Fourier Features Let Networks Learn High Frequency Functions in Low Dimensional Domains](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.10739/) (2020)
- [On the Spectral Bias of Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.08734/) (2018)
- [Neural Fields in Visual Computing and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.11426/) (2021)
- [NeRF: Neural Radiance Field in 3D Vision: A Comprehensive Review (Updated Post-Gaussian Splatting)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.00379/) (2022)
- [Optimizing the Latent Space of Generative Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.05776/) (2017)
- [PhyCRNet: Physics-informed Convolutional-Recurrent Network for Solving Spatiotemporal PDEs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.14103/) (2021)
- [Operator Learning with Neural Fields: Tackling PDEs on General Geometries](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.07266/) (2023)
- [A fast and accurate physics-informed neural network reduced order model with shallow masked autoencoder](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.11990/) (2020)
- [POD-DL-ROM: enhancing deep learning-based reduced order models for nonlinear parametrized PDEs by proper orthogonal decomposition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.11845/) (2021)
- [β-Variational autoencoders and transformers for reduced-order modelling of fluid flows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.03571/) (2023)
- [Continuous PDE Dynamics Forecasting with Implicit Neural Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14855/) (2022)
- [CROM: Continuous Reduced-Order Modeling of PDEs Using Implicit Neural Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.02607/) (2022)
- [Hypernetwork-based Meta-Learning for Low-Rank Physics-Informed Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.09528/) (2023)
- [Neural Implicit Flow: a mesh-agnostic dimensionality reduction paradigm of spatio-temporal data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.03216/) (2022)
- [Implicit Neural Spatial Representations for Time-dependent PDEs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.00124/) (2022)
- [CoNFiLD-inlet: Synthetic Turbulence Inflow Using Generative Latent Diffusion Models with Neural Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.14378/) (2024)

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

- [Physics-Preserving Latent Compression for Zero-Shot Resolution Transfer in 3D Turbulence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.21781/) (2026)
- [Conditional Neural Field based Reduced Order Model for Dynamic Ditching Load Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.21499/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We investigate conditional neural fields (CNFs), mesh-agnostic, coordinate-based decoders conditioned on a low-dimensional latent, for spatial dimensionality reduction of turbulent flows. CNFs are benchmarked against Proper Orthogonal Decomposition and a convolutional autoencoder within a unified encoding-decoding framework and a common evaluation protocol that explicitly separates in-range (interpolative) from out-of-range (strict extrapolative) testing beyond the training horizon, with identical preprocessing, metrics, and fixed splits across all baselines. We examine three conditioning mechanisms: (i) activation-only modulation (often termed FiLM), (ii) low-rank weight and bias modulation (termed FP), and (iii) last-layer inner-product coupling, and introduce a novel domain-decomposed CNF that localizes complexities. Across representative turbulence datasets (WMLES channel inflow, DNS channel inflow, and wall pressure fluctuations over turbulent boundary layers), CNF-FP achieves the lowest training and in-range testing errors, while CNF-FiLM generalizes best for out-of-range scenarios once moderate latent capacity is available. Domain decomposition significantly improves out-of-range accuracy, especially for the more demanding datasets. The study provides a rigorous, physics-aware basis for selecting conditioning, capacity, and domain decomposition when using CNFs for turbulence compression and reconstruction.