# ProMoDD: Dataset Distillation for 3D Human Motion via Prototype-Conditioned Diffusion Models

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.16134 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.16134/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Video generation, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 35 of its 42 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 12 Oct 2026.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Video generation](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/video-generation/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 35)

- [Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.12598/) (2022)
- [Spatial Temporal Graph Convolutional Networks for Skeleton-Based Action Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.07455/) (2018)
- [Human Motion Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14916/) (2022)
- [MotionDiffuse: Text-Driven Human Motion Generation with Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.15001/) (2022)
- [NTU RGB+D: A Large Scale Dataset for 3D Human Activity Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1604.02808/) (2016)
- [Executing your Commands via Motion Diffusion in Latent Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.04048/) (2022)
- [NTU RGB+D 120: A Large-Scale Benchmark for 3D Human Activity Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.04757/) (2019)
- [Dataset Condensation with Gradient Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.05929/) (2020)
- [Action-Conditioned 3D Human Motion Synthesis with Transformer VAE](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.05670/) (2021)
- [Dataset Distillation by Matching Training Trajectories](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.11932/) (2022)
- [Action2Motion: Conditioned Generation of 3D Human Motions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.15240/) (2020)
- [Dataset Condensation with Distribution Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.04181/) (2021)
- [Disentangling and Unifying Graph Convolutions for Skeleton-Based Action Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.14111/) (2020)
- [Channel-wise Topology Refinement Graph Convolution for Skeleton-Based Action Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.12213/) (2021)
- [ReMoDiffuse: Retrieval-Augmented Motion Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.01116/) (2023)
- [GRAD-MATCH: Gradient Matching based Data Subset Selection for Efficient Deep Model Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00123/) (2021)
- [Dataset Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.10959/) (2018)
- [Motion-X: A Large-scale 3D Expressive Whole-body Human Motion Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.00818/) (2023)
- [Human Action Recognition from Various Data Modalities: A Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.11866/) (2020)
- [Dataset Distillation: A Comprehensive Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.07014/) (2023)
- [Generalizing Dataset Distillation via Deep Generative Prior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.01649/) (2023)
- [HuMMan: Multi-Modal 4D Human Dataset for Versatile Sensing and Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.13686/) (2022)
- [On the Diversity and Realism of Distilled Dataset: An Efficient Dataset Distillation Paradigm](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.03526/) (2023)
- [DREAM: Efficient Dataset Distillation by Representative Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.14416/) (2023)
- [Efficient Dataset Distillation via Minimax Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15529/) (2023)
- [D4M: Dataset Distillation via Disentangled Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.15138/) (2024)
- [Dataset Quantization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.10524/) (2023)
- [A Survey on 3D Skeleton-Based Action Recognition Using Learning Method](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.05907/) (2020)
- [Motion-X++: A Large-Scale Multimodal 3D Whole-body Human Motion Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.05098/) (2025)
- [Unlocking Dataset Distillation with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.03881/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Dataset distillation (DD) aims to retain the training utility of a large dataset in a much smaller set of examples. For skeleton-based action recognition, this requires capturing discriminative motion variation without disrupting the geometry and temporal continuity of articulated bodies. Directly optimizing joint coordinates can violate these constraints, while plausible motion generation alone does not ensure useful training examples. We propose Prototype-Conditioned Motion Dataset Distillation (ProMoDD), which conditions a motion diffusion model on class-wise prototypes of temporally resolved recognition features. We further tailor diffusion training to motion data, enabling the generator to model both skeletal configurations and their temporal evolution. We then construct each compact training set through budget-aware hybrid selection: representative real sequences cover densely populated regions of the pooled recognition space, while selected generated candidates complement them in less-populated regions. This couples prototype-guided generation with feature-space selection, balancing the reliability of observed motions with the variation of synthesis under a fixed per-class sequence budget. Across five difficulty-stratified subsets of the single-person classes in NTU RGB+D 60, ProMoDD achieves its largest gains under tight distillation budgets, reaching 40.32% top-1 accuracy on Full49 with three sequences per class, 4.57 percentage points above class-wise k-means. These gains reflect the complete framework. The same distilled sets train ST-GCN, MS-G3D, and CTR-GCN without regeneration.