# TourPhysics: Bringing Physics to World Models for Exploration and Manipulation from a Single Image

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.04911 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.04911/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Latent predictive world models, one of 11 directions in World models.
- Builds on 75 of its 95 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 4 Sep 2026.

## Placed in

- World models / [Latent predictive world models](https://mlsanity.com/wm/latent-predictive-world-models/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 75)

- [Qwen2-VL: Enhancing Vision-Language Model's Perception of the World at Any Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.12191/) (2024)
- [Wan: Open and Advanced Large-Scale Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.20314/) (2025)
- [Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15127/) (2023)
- [HunyuanVideo: A Systematic Framework For Large Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.03603/) (2024)
- [VGGT: Visual Geometry Grounded Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.11651/) (2025)
- [Diffusion Models in Vision: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.04747/) (2022)
- [SAM 3: Segment Anything with Concepts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.16719/) (2025)
- [Structured 3D Latents for Scalable and Versatile 3D Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.01506/) (2024)
- [Resolution-robust Large Mask Inpainting with Fourier Convolutions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.07161/) (2021)
- [A Survey on Visual Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.12556/) (2020)
- [MotionCtrl: A Unified and Flexible Motion Controller for Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.03641/) (2023)
- [Ref-NeRF: Structured View-Dependent Appearance for Neural Radiance Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.03907/) (2021)
- [Deep Learning for 3D Point Clouds: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.12033/) (2019)
- [Continuous 3D Perception Model with Persistent State](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.12387/) (2025)
- [Learning Interactive Real-World Simulators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.06114/) (2023)
- [ViewCrafter: Taming Video Diffusion Models for High-fidelity Novel View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.02048/) (2024)
- [GEN3C: 3D-Informed World-Consistent Video Generation with Precise Camera Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.03751/) (2025)
- [MoGe: Unlocking Accurate Monocular Geometry Estimation for Open-Domain Images with Optimal Training Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.19115/) (2024)
- [Diffusion Models Are Real-Time Game Engines](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.14837/) (2024)
- [SAM 3D: 3Dfy Anything in Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.16624/) (2025)
- [PhysDreamer: Physics-Based Interaction with 3D Objects via Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.13026/) (2024)
- [PhysGen: Rigid-Body Physics-Grounded Image-to-Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.18964/) (2024)
- [Tora: Trajectory-oriented Diffusion Transformer for Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.21705/) (2024)
- [VideoPhy-2: A Challenging Action-Centric Physical Commonsense Evaluation in Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.06800/) (2025)
- [CoTracker3: Simpler and Better Point Tracking by Pseudo-Labelling Real Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.11831/) (2024)
- [GameGen-X: Interactive Open-world Game Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.00769/) (2024)
- [A Review on Deep Learning Techniques for Video Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.05214/) (2020)
- [MEMC-Net: Motion Estimation and Motion Compensation Driven Neural Network for Video Interpolation and Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.08768/) (2018)
- [CAST: Component-Aligned 3D Scene Reconstruction from an RGB Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.12894/) (2025)
- [Every Pixel Counts ++: Joint Learning of Geometry and Motion with 3D Holistic Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.06125/) (2018)

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

- [Search-to-World: Evaluation of 3D World Delivery from User Request through Web Search](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.07605/) (2026)
- [Uncertainty DMD: Restoring Diversity in Few-Step Autoregressive Video Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.11265/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Interactive visual world models must distinguish observation from physical intervention. Camera motion reveals new surfaces, whereas intervention changes object motion, contact, and deformation. Current video world models are largely driven by appearance priors and often lose physical or spatial consistency over long horizons. We present TourPhysics, an online framework initialized from a single image and a declarative physical configuration. TourPhysics extends PhysOmni, our ACM Multimedia 2026 work, from finite physics-grounded video synthesis to persistent exploration and manipulation. TourPhysics combines deterministic simulation with video generation while assigning separate roles to simulator state, geometric evidence, generator controls, and appearance memory. For each action, the simulator computes a finite physical and camera trajectory before the corresponding observation is generated. Accepted observations publish the terminal state and update the appearance memory and subsequent generator controls, while the committed state and simulator geometry remain fixed throughout synthesis and retry. We further separate the simulator geometry used for projection and visibility from the relative depth used to condition the generator. A reference-anchored memory retrieves accepted static appearance through geometric cross-view correspondence and incorporates it through a bounded residual that reverts to the native path when no valid correspondence exists. On simulator-defined camera tours and object manipulations, TourPhysics follows prescribed camera and object trajectories more closely than the evaluated baselines, preserves the input scene, and reduces appearance drift during long-horizon revisits.