mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

ControlMap: Controllable High-Definition Map Generation for Traffic Scenario Simulation

arXiv 2606.15930 ↗First posted 14 Jun 2026cs.RO cs.AIcited by 1

On the map: Diffusion models → Diffusion and flow policies for robotics

Abstract (arXiv)

Simulation is central to validating autonomous driving systems, yet current pipelines are limited by insufficient scenario diversity due to costly High Definition (HD) map creation. Scaling HD maps requires expensive data collection and manual processing. Moreover, existing generative models lack the fine-grained control necessary to target specific road topologies during generation. This paper presents a data-driven pipeline for controllable HD map generation using latent diffusion and ControlNet for spatial conditioning. To our knowledge, we are the first to inject spatial guidance signals into a diffusion model for HD map synthesis. Furthermore, our model supports adjustable conditioning strength through classifier-free guidance and city-level style transfer via city label conditioning. To complement existing metrics, we introduce two novel metrics to evaluate adherence to the control signal and similarity to ground-truth maps. Experiments demonstrate that our model generates realistic HD maps that faithfully follow input road topologies while accurately preserving city-specific details.

Key facts. Cited by 1 paper in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Diffusion and flow policies for robotics, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 18 of its 27 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 14 Jun 2026.

Builds on

18 of 27 references.

Closest ancestors · 1

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025Scenario Dreamer: Vectorized Latent Diffusion for Generating Driving Simulation Environments28 Mar

Other references · 17

  1. 2022Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understandingcited by 6,355
  2. 2023Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 5,503
  3. 2021Zero-Shot Text-to-Image Generationcited by 4,288
  4. 2017CARLA: An Open Urban Driving Simulatorcited by 2,449
  5. 2023T2I-Adapter: Learning Adapters to Dig out More Controllable Ability for Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 1,351
  6. 2019Improved Precision and Recall Metric for Assessing Generative Modelscited by 944
  7. 2023PixArt-α: Fast Training of Diffusion Transformer for Photorealistic Text-to-Image Synthesiscited by 864
  8. 2021NuPlan: A closed-loop ML-based planning benchmark for autonomous vehiclescited by 493
  9. 2019Understanding and Improving Layer Normalizationcited by 217
  10. 2023Waymax: An Accelerated, Data-Driven Simulator for Large-Scale Autonomous Driving Researchcited by 160
  11. 2021SceneGen: Learning to Generate Realistic Traffic Scenescited by 84
  12. 2021VISTA 2.0: An Open, Data-driven Simulator for Multimodal Sensing and Policy Learning for Autonomous Vehiclescited by 81
5 more
  1. 2021HDMapGen: A Hierarchical Graph Generative Model of High Definition Mapscited by 40
  2. 2019Neural Turtle Graphics for Modeling City Road Layoutscited by 29
  3. 2023DriveSceneGen: Generating Diverse and Realistic Driving Scenarios from Scratchcited by 27
  4. 2024SLEDGE: Synthesizing Driving Environments with Generative Models and Rule-Based Trafficcited by 27
  5. 2024Editing Music with Melody and Text: Using ControlNet for Diffusion Transformercited by 13

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 1.

1 paper.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026CityGen: Structure-Guided City-Style Synthesis for Cross-City Autonomous Driving
  2. 2025DriveGen: Towards Infinite Diverse Traffic Scenarios with Large Models
  3. 2025Path Diffuser: Diffusion Model for Data-Driven Traffic Simulator
  4. 2023Scenario Diffusion: Controllable Driving Scenario Generation With Diffusion
  5. 2024DiffRoad: Realistic and Diverse Road Scenario Generation for Autonomous Vehicle Testing
  6. 2024Controllable Traffic Simulation through LLM-Guided Hierarchical Reasoning and Refinement
  7. 2026ECoSim: Data Efficient Fine-Tuning for Controllable Traffic Simulation
  8. 2025Controllable Latent Diffusion for Traffic Simulation