# R3L: Reasoning 3D Layouts from Relative Spatial Relations

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.06758 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.06758/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Spatial and embodied reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 21 of its 70 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 7 May 2026.

## Placed in

- LLM reasoning / [Spatial and embodied reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/lr/spatial-and-embodied-reasoning/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 21 of 21)

- [GPT-4 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08774/) (2023)
- [LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.13971/) (2023)
- [Llama 2: Open Foundation and Fine-Tuned Chat Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.09288/) (2023)
- [Qwen3 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.09388/) (2025)
- [DINOv2: Learning Robust Visual Features without Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.07193/) (2023)
- [DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.12948/) (2025)
- [GPT-4o System Card](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.21276/) (2024)
- [Gemini 2.5: Pushing the Frontier with Advanced Reasoning, Multimodality, Long Context, and Next Generation Agentic Capabilities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.06261/) (2025)
- [Qwen Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.16609/) (2023)
- [OpenVLA: An Open-Source Vision-Language-Action Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09246/) (2024)
- [Gemini: A Family of Highly Capable Multimodal Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.11805/) (2023)
- [World Model on Million-Length Video And Language With Blockwise RingAttention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.08268/) (2024)
- [SpaceR: Reinforcing MLLMs in Video Spatial Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.01805/) (2025)
- [Large VLM-based Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulation: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.13073/) (2025)
- [Scenethesis: A Language and Vision Agentic Framework for 3D Scene Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.02836/) (2025)
- [Open-Universe Indoor Scene Generation using LLM Program Synthesis and Uncurated Object Databases](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.09675/) (2024)
- [LLplace: The 3D Indoor Scene Layout Generation and Editing via Large Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.03866/) (2024)
- [HOLODECK 2.0: Vision-Language-Guided 3D World Generation with Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.05899/) (2025)
- [RoomCraft: Controllable and Complete 3D Indoor Scene Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.22291/) (2025)
- [ReSpace: Text-Driven Autoregressive 3D Indoor Scene Synthesis and Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.02459/) (2025)
- [HLG: Comprehensive 3D Room Construction via Hierarchical Layout Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.17832/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Relative spatial relations provide a compact representation of spatial structure and are fundamental to relative spatial reasoning in 3D layout generation. Recent works leverage Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) to infer such relations, but the inferred relations are often unreliable and are typically handled with post-hoc heuristics. In this paper, we propose R3L, a general framework that improves the reliability and consistency of relative spatial reasoning for 3D layout generation. Our key motivation is that multi-hop reasoning requires repeated reference-frame transformations, which accumulate errors in inferred relations and lead to semantic and metric drift. To mitigate this, we propose invariant spatial decomposition to break coupled relation chains, and consistent spatial imagination to promote self-consistency through an imagine-and-revise loop. We further introduce supportive spatial optimization to ease pose optimization via global-to-local coordinate re-parameterization. Extensive experiments across diverse scene types and instructions demonstrate that R3L produces more physically feasible and semantically consistent layouts. Notably, our analysis shows that resolving frame-induced inconsistencies is crucial for reliable multi-hop relative spatial reasoning. The code is available at https://github.com/Neal2020GitHub/R3L.