# Physically Based Rendering in the Latent Space

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.21054 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.21054/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in 3D, point cloud and scene generation, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 31 of its 65 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 17 Sep 2026.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [3D, point cloud and scene generation](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/3d-point-cloud-and-scene-generation/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 31)

- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.09685/) (2021)
- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.03585/) (2015)
- [Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05543/) (2023)
- [Generative Modeling by Estimating Gradients of the Data Distribution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.05600/) (2019)
- [DreamFusion: Text-to-3D using 2D Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14988/) (2022)
- [Wan: Open and Advanced Large-Scale Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.20314/) (2025)
- [CogVideoX: Text-to-Video Diffusion Models with An Expert Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.06072/) (2024)
- [SDEdit: Guided Image Synthesis and Editing with Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.01073/) (2021)
- [Zero-1-to-3: Zero-shot One Image to 3D Object](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11328/) (2023)
- [Latent-NeRF for Shape-Guided Generation of 3D Shapes and Textures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.07600/) (2022)
- [Blended Latent Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.02779/) (2022)
- [SANA: Efficient High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Linear Diffusion Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.10629/) (2024)
- [MoGe: Unlocking Accurate Monocular Geometry Estimation for Open-Domain Images with Optimal Training Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.19115/) (2024)
- [Stable Virtual Camera: Generative View Synthesis with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.14489/) (2025)
- [Native and Compact Structured Latents for 3D Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.14692/) (2025)
- [RGBleftrightarrowX: Image decomposition and synthesis using material- and lighting-aware diffusion models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.00666/) (2024)
- [Delta Denoising Score](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.07090/) (2023)
- [DiffusionRenderer: Neural Inverse and Forward Rendering with Video Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.18590/) (2025)
- [Latent Space Super-Resolution for Higher-Resolution Image Generation with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.18446/) (2025)
- [RenderFormer: Transformer-based Neural Rendering of Triangle Meshes with Global Illumination](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.21925/) (2025)
- [GenLit: Reformulating Single-Image Relighting as Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.11224/) (2024)
- [IntrinsiX: High-Quality PBR Generation using Image Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.01008/) (2025)
- [IntrinsicEdit: Precise generative image manipulation in intrinsic space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.08889/) (2025)
- [FreeCompose: Generic Zero-Shot Image Composition with Diffusion Prior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.04947/) (2024)
- [Physically Controllable Relighting of Photographs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.05626/) (2025)
- [Splatent: Splatting Diffusion Latents for Novel View Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.09923/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Image diffusion models have shown impressive image generation capabilities but are often hard to control, in contrast to classical computer graphics pipelines such as physically based rendering. However, we observe that there is a bridge between light transport phenomena and the distribution of latent space values produced by such models. Thus, we introduce physically based rendering in the feature space learned by the variational autoencoders in generative models, enabling light transport simulation in the latent space. This allows us to leverage physically based rendering techniques to output latent maps for physically guided content generation. We propose modifications to the rendering equation, which, when paired with a differentiable renderer, can yield an optimal set of scene parameters that require only minimal refinement to accurately render into the pretrained latent space. We train our method on a single rendered image, and then demonstrate the generalization of the method to scene geometry changes, lighting changes, and camera view changes.