# PolaRiS: Scalable Real-to-Sim Evaluations for Generalist Robot Policies

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.16881 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.16881/

## Key facts

- Cited by 33 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 48 of its 60 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 18 Dec 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 48)

- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [OpenVLA: An Open-Source Vision-Language-Action Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09246/) (2024)
- [SAM 2: Segment Anything in Images and Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.00714/) (2024)
- [π0.5: a Vision-Language-Action Model with Open-World Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.16054/) (2025)
- [Octo: An Open-Source Generalist Robot Policy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.12213/) (2024)
- [LIBERO: Benchmarking Knowledge Transfer for Lifelong Robot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.03310/) (2023)
- [GR00T N1: An Open Foundation Model for Generalist Humanoid Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.14734/) (2025)
- [Meta-World: A Benchmark and Evaluation for Multi-Task and Meta Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.10897/) (2019)
- [Habitat: A Platform for Embodied AI Research](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.01201/) (2019)
- [2D Gaussian Splatting for Geometrically Accurate Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17888/) (2024)
- [Fine-Tuning Vision-Language-Action Models: Optimizing Speed and Success](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.19645/) (2025)
- [Open X-Embodiment: Robotic Learning Datasets and RT-X Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.08864/) (2023)
- [DROID: A Large-Scale In-The-Wild Robot Manipulation Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.12945/) (2024)
- [Structured 3D Latents for Scalable and Versatile 3D Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.01506/) (2024)
- [RLBench: The Robot Learning Benchmark & Learning Environment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.12271/) (2019)
- [FAST: Efficient Action Tokenization for Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.09747/) (2025)
- [CALVIN: A Benchmark for Language-Conditioned Policy Learning for Long-Horizon Robot Manipulation Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.03227/) (2021)
- [Evaluating Real-World Robot Manipulation Policies in Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.05941/) (2024)
- [Gibson Env: Real-World Perception for Embodied Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.10654/) (2018)
- [RoboCasa: Large-Scale Simulation of Everyday Tasks for Generalist Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.02523/) (2024)
- [UniSim: A Neural Closed-Loop Sensor Simulator](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.01898/) (2023)
- [A Survey on 3D Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.03890/) (2024)
- [BakedSDF: Meshing Neural SDFs for Real-Time View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.14859/) (2023)
- [Ctrl-World: A Controllable Generative World Model for Robot Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.10125/) (2025)
- [BEHAVIOR-1K: A Human-Centered, Embodied AI Benchmark with 1,000 Everyday Activities and Realistic Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.09227/) (2024)
- [Reconciling Reality through Simulation: A Real-to-Sim-to-Real Approach for Robust Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.03949/) (2024)
- [A Careful Examination of Large Behavior Models for Multitask Dexterous Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.05331/) (2025)
- [Benchmarking in Manipulation Research: The YCB Object and Model Set and Benchmarking Protocols](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1502.03143/) (2015)
- [ROBEL: Robotics Benchmarks for Learning with Low-Cost Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.11639/) (2019)
- [SplatSim: Zero-Shot Sim2Real Transfer of RGB Manipulation Policies Using Gaussian Splatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.10161/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 33)

- [World Action Models are Zero-shot Policies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.15922/) (2026)
- [World Action Models: The Next Frontier in Embodied AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.12090/) (2026)
- [RoboLab: A High-Fidelity Simulation Benchmark for Analysis of Task Generalist Policies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.09860/) (2026)
- [Scaling Verification Can Be More Effective than Scaling Policy Learning for Vision-Language-Action Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.12281/) (2026)
- [REALM: A Real-to-Sim Validated Benchmark for Generalization in Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.19562/) (2025)
- [SimToolReal: An Object-Centric Policy for Zero-Shot Dexterous Tool Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.16863/) (2026)
- [Reconstruction by Generation: 3D Multi-Object Scene Reconstruction from Sparse Observations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.27106/) (2026)
- [SC3-Eval: Evaluating Robot Foundation Models via Self-Consistent Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.18610/) (2026)
- [A Mechanistic Analysis of Sim-and-Real Co-Training in Generative Robot Policies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.13645/) (2026)
- [Improving Robotic Generalist Policies via Flow Reversal Steering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.13675/) (2026)
- [Contact-Anchored Policies: Contact Conditioning Creates Strong Robot Utility Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.09017/) (2026)
- [RoboWorld: Fast and Reliable Neural Simulators for Generalist Robot Policy Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.01060/) (2026)
- [Adapting Generalist Robot Policies with Semantic Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.31958/) (2026)
- [Grounding Robot Generalization in Training Data via Retrieval-Augmented VLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.11426/) (2026)
- [DREAM: Deployment-Time Demonstration Generation via Real-to-Sim for Scalable Policy Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.29078/) (2026)
- [RoboPlayground: Democratizing Robotic Evaluation through Structured Physical Domains](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.05226/) (2026)
- [From Seeing to Simulating: Generative High-Fidelity Simulation with Digital Cousins for Generalizable Robot Learning and Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.15805/) (2026)
- [GASE: Gaussian Splatting-Based Automated System for Reconstructing Embodied-Simulation Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.17520/) (2026)
- [Support-Constrained RL Enables Real-World Policy Improvement without Real-World Experience](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.27475/) (2026)
- [Active Real-World Factor-Based Evaluation for Generalist Robot Policies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.14439/) (2026)
- [Mirage2Matter: A Physically Grounded Gaussian World Model from Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.00096/) (2026)
- [RL2-VLA: Adaptive RL Latent Compositional Steering with Test-Time Scaling for Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.26991/) (2026)
- [R2S-Eval: Robot Evaluation with Real-to-Sim Calibration via Vision-Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.03276/) (2026)
- [DexTouch-WM: Learning Action-Conditioned Tactile World Models from Human Touch for Dexterous Robot Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.20649/) (2026)
- [When Does Test-Time Physical Diagnosis Pay? A Frozen Policy Buys Evidence It Never Reads](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.22299/) (2026)
- [ReVeal: A Reconstruction-Aware Real-to-Sim Framework for VLA Policy Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.23910/) (2026)
- [φ-RIE: From Photorealistic Reconstruction to Interactive Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.26795/) (2026)
- [Fysiverse-3D-SimReady Technical Report: Agentic Physical Simulation for Pragmatic 3D World Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.31715/) (2026)
- [LiteReality-Agent: An Agentic System for Interactable 3D Indoor Scene Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.01863/) (2026)
- [Multi-Fidelity Policy Gradients Stabilize Data-Scarce Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.02505/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

A significant challenge for robot learning research is our ability to accurately measure and compare the performance of robot policies. Benchmarking in robotics is historically challenging due to the stochasticity, reproducibility, and time-consuming nature of real-world rollouts. This challenge is exacerbated for recent generalist policies, which has to be evaluated across a wide variety of scenes and tasks. Evaluation in simulation offers a scalable complement to real world evaluations, but the visual and physical domain gap between existing simulation benchmarks and the real world has made them an unreliable signal for policy improvement. Furthermore, building realistic and diverse simulated environments has traditionally required significant human effort and expertise. To bridge the gap, we introduce Policy Evaluation and Environment Reconstruction in Simulation (PolaRiS), a scalable real-to-sim framework for high-fidelity simulated robot evaluation. PolaRiS utilizes neural reconstruction methods to turn short video scans of real-world scenes into interactive simulation environments. Additionally, we develop a simple simulation data co-training recipe that bridges remaining real-to-sim gaps and enables zero-shot evaluation in unseen simulation environments. Through extensive paired evaluations between simulation and the real world, we demonstrate that PolaRiS evaluations provide a much stronger correlation to real world generalist policy performance than existing simulated benchmarks. Its simplicity also enables rapid creation of diverse simulated environments. As such, this work takes a step towards distributed and democratized evaluation for the next generation of robotic foundation models.