# FoldPath: End-to-End Object-Centric Motion Generation via Modulated Implicit Paths

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.01407 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.01407/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 26 of its 41 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 3 Nov 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 26 of 26)

- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1405.0312/) (2014)
- [PointNet: Deep Learning on Point Sets for 3D Classification and Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.00593/) (2016)
- [PointNet++: Deep Hierarchical Feature Learning on Point Sets in a Metric Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.02413/) (2017)
- [OpenVLA: An Open-Source Vision-Language-Action Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09246/) (2024)
- [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)
- [Point Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.00931/) (2020)
- [KPConv: Flexible and Deformable Convolution for Point Clouds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.08889/) (2019)
- [Point Transformer V3: Simpler, Faster, Stronger](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.10035/) (2023)
- [Deep Learning for 3D Point Clouds: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.12033/) (2019)
- [Neural Fields in Visual Computing and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.11426/) (2021)
- [AtlasNet: A Papier-Mach'e Approach to Learning 3D Surface Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.05384/) (2018)
- [An Algorithmic Perspective on Imitation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.06711/) (2018)
- [Grasping Field: Learning Implicit Representations for Human Grasps](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.04451/) (2020)
- [Modulated Periodic Activations for Generalizable Local Functional Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.03960/) (2021)
- [FINER: Flexible spectral-bias tuning in Implicit NEural Representation by Variable-periodic Activation Functions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02434/) (2023)
- [AdaPoinTr: Diverse Point Cloud Completion with Adaptive Geometry-Aware Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.04545/) (2023)
- [Differentiable Physics Simulation of Dynamics-Augmented Neural Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.09420/) (2022)
- [Neural Fields in Robotics: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.20220/) (2024)
- [Path Planning with Automatic Seam Extraction over Point Cloud Models for Robotic Arc Welding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.11951/) (2020)
- [T-CorresNet: Template Guided 3D Point Cloud Completion with Correspondence Pooling Query Generation Strategy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.05008/) (2024)
- [PaintNet: Unstructured Multi-Path Learning from 3D Point Clouds for Robotic Spray Painting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.06930/) (2022)
- [MaskPlanner: Learning-Based Object-Centric Motion Generation from 3D Point Clouds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.18745/) (2025)
- [A Structured Prediction Approach for Robot Imitation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.14829/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Object-Centric Motion Generation (OCMG) is instrumental in advancing automated manufacturing processes, particularly in domains requiring high-precision expert robotic motions, such as spray painting and welding. To realize effective automation, robust algorithms are essential for generating extended, object-aware trajectories across intricate 3D geometries. However, contemporary OCMG techniques are either based on ad-hoc heuristics or employ learning-based pipelines that are still reliant on sensitive post-processing steps to generate executable paths. We introduce FoldPath, a novel, end-to-end, neural field based method for OCMG. Unlike prior deep learning approaches that predict discrete sequences of end-effector waypoints, FoldPath learns the robot motion as a continuous function, thus implicitly encoding smooth output paths. This paradigm shift eliminates the need for brittle post-processing steps that concatenate and order the predicted discrete waypoints. Particularly, our approach demonstrates superior predictive performance compared to recently proposed learning-based methods, and attains generalization capabilities even in real industrial settings, where only a limited amount of 70 expert samples are provided. We validate FoldPath through comprehensive experiments in a realistic simulation environment and introduce new, rigorous metrics designed to comprehensively evaluate long-horizon robotic paths, thus advancing the OCMG task towards practical maturity.