# SphericalDreamer: Generating Navigable Immersive 3D Worlds with Panorama Fusion

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.19974 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.19974/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 24 of its 38 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 19 May 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 24 of 24)

- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [Segment Anything](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.02643/) (2023)
- [Visual Instruction Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08485/) (2023)
- [DreamFusion: Text-to-3D using 2D Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14988/) (2022)
- [Objaverse: A Universe of Annotated 3D Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.08051/) (2022)
- [Depth Anything V2](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09414/) (2024)
- [Resolution-robust Large Mask Inpainting with Fourier Convolutions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.07161/) (2021)
- [GRAF: Generative Radiance Fields for 3D-Aware Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.02442/) (2020)
- [Rodin: A Generative Model for Sculpting 3D Digital Avatars Using Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.06135/) (2022)
- [Text2Room: Extracting Textured 3D Meshes from 2D Text-to-Image Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11989/) (2023)
- [LucidDreamer: Domain-free Generation of 3D Gaussian Splatting Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.13384/) (2023)
- [3D Photography using Context-aware Layered Depth Inpainting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.04727/) (2020)
- [WonderWorld: Interactive 3D Scene Generation from a Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09394/) (2024)
- [SceneScape: Text-Driven Consistent Scene Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.01133/) (2023)
- [WonderJourney: Going from Anywhere to Everywhere](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.03884/) (2023)
- [HoHoNet: 360 Indoor Holistic Understanding with Latent Horizontal Features](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.11498/) (2020)
- [UniFuse: Unidirectional Fusion for 360circ Panorama Depth Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.03550/) (2021)
- [360MonoDepth: High-Resolution 360deg Monocular Depth Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.15669/) (2021)
- [InFusion: Inpainting 3D Gaussians via Learning Depth Completion from Diffusion Prior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.11613/) (2024)
- [LayerPano3D: Layered 3D Panorama for Hyper-Immersive Scene Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.13252/) (2024)
- [EGformer: Equirectangular Geometry-biased Transformer for 360 Depth Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.07803/) (2023)
- [BiFuse++: Self-supervised and Efficient Bi-projection Fusion for 360 Depth Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.02952/) (2022)
- [A Recipe for Generating 3D Worlds From a Single Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.16611/) (2025)
- [3DGEN: A GAN-based approach for generating novel 3D models from image data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.08094/) (2023)

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

- [Towards Interactive Video World Modeling: Frontiers, Challenges, Benchmarks, and Future Trends](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.01164/) (2026)
- [World Observer: Joint Actor-Observer Generation for Persistent World Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.02162/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The generation of immersive and navigable 3D environments is increasingly prevalent with the growing adoption of virtual reality and 3D content. However, recent methods face a fundamental limitation: they cannot produce 3D worlds that simultaneously (i) are navigable over long-range spatial extents and (ii) cover the complete omnidirectional field of view (360^circ horizontally and 180^circ vertically). To address this challenge, we introduce SphericalDreamer, a method for generating fully immersive and long-range 3D outdoor environments from textual prompts. Our approach is built on the generation of multiple panoramic images, which are subsequently lifted into 3D and fused together while maintaining visual and geometric consistency. SphericalDreamer produces highly detailed, fully immersive 3D environments, while substantially improving scale and navigability compared to prior approaches.