Advances in 4D Generation: A Survey

Code

• github.com/miaoqiaowei/awesome-4d
  OfficialIn papernone★ 89

Abstract

Generative artificial intelligence has witnessed remarkable advancements across multiple domains in recent years. Building on the successes of 2D and 3D content generation, 4D generation, which incorporates the temporal dimension into generative tasks, has emerged as a burgeoning yet rapidly evolving research area. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of this emerging field, systematically examining its theoretical foundations, key methodologies, and practical applications, with the aim of providing readers with a holistic understanding of the current state and future potential of 4D generation. We begin by introducing the core concepts of 4D data representations, encompassing both structured and unstructured formats, and their implications for generative tasks. Building upon this foundation, we delve into the enabling technologies that drive 4D generation, including advancements in spatiotemporal modeling, neural representations, and generative frameworks. We further review recent studies that employ diverse control mechanisms and representation strategies for generating 4D outputs, categorizing these approaches and summarizing their research trajectories. In addition, we explore the wide-ranging applications of 4D generation techniques, spanning dynamic object modeling, scene generation, digital human synthesis, 4D content editing, and autonomous driving. Finally, we analyze the key challenges inherent to 4D generation, such as data availability, computational efficiency, and spatiotemporal consistency, and propose promising directions for future research. Our code is publicly available at: https://github.com/MiaoQiaowei/Awesome-4D.

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