{"about":{"site":"https://codewithpapers.app","non_affiliation":"Code with Papers and Syntology are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Papers with Code, Meta, or the pwc-archive mirror.","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","attribution":"https://codewithpapers.app/attribution","modified":"archive material modified by Syntology; see the attribution page"},"url":"/paper/growing-3d-artefacts-and-functional-machines","title":"Growing 3D Artefacts and Functional Machines with Neural Cellular Automata","arxiv_id":"2103.08737","date":"2021-03-15","proceeding":null,"authors":["Shyam Sudhakaran","Djordje Grbic","Siyan Li","Adam Katona","Elias Najarro","Claire Glanois","Sebastian Risi"],"abstract":"Neural Cellular Automata (NCAs) have been proven effective in simulating morphogenetic processes, the continuous construction of complex structures from very few starting cells. Recent developments in NCAs lie in the 2D domain, namely reconstructing target images from a single pixel or infinitely growing 2D textures. In this work, we propose an extension of NCAs to 3D, utilizing 3D convolutions in the proposed neural network architecture. Minecraft is selected as the environment for our automaton since it allows the generation of both static structures and moving machines. We show that despite their simplicity, NCAs are capable of growing complex entities such as castles, apartment blocks, and trees, some of which are composed of over 3,000 blocks. Additionally, when trained for regeneration, the system is able to regrow parts of simple functional machines, significantly expanding the capabilities of simulated morphogenetic systems. The code for the experiment in this paper can be found at: https://github.com/real-itu/3d-artefacts-nca.","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.08737v2","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.08737v2.pdf","source":{"archive":"pwc-archive (Hugging Face), CC BY-SA 4.0","snapshot":"2025-07-28","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","row_kind":"abstracts"},"code_links":[{"paper_slug":"growing-3d-artefacts-and-functional-machines","repo_url":"https://github.com/real-itu/3d-artefacts-nca","is_official":1,"mentioned_in_paper":1,"mentioned_in_github":1,"framework":"pytorch","reach":null}],"tasks":[{"task_slug":"minecraft","task_name":"Minecraft"}],"methods":[],"datasets_introduced":[],"methods_introduced":[],"results":[],"syntology":{"atlas_url":"https://app.syntology.ai/?focus=2103.08737","mcp":{"get_harvested_code_for_paper":{"arxiv_id":"2103.08737"}},"developers":"https://syntology.ai/developers","read_at":"2026-09-24T18:15:14+00:00","read_at_is":"when the build read Syntology's graph, not when any sample ran","claim":"Per-sample execution status on synthesized fixtures; not a correctness claim about the paper. Samples come from repositories linked to the paper, official or community; repo_kind says which.","repos":[{"provenance":"external:paperswithcode_snapshot_2025-07-28","url":"https://github.com/real-itu/3d-artefacts-nca","reach":null}],"summary":{"ran_fixture":2},"by_repo_kind":{"official":{"samples":2,"ran":2,"repositories":1}},"repo_kind_vocabulary":{"official":"The archive marks this repository official for the paper","named_in_paper":"The archive records that the paper mentions this repository; it is not marked official","listed":"In the archive's code links for this paper, not marked official and not recorded as mentioned in the paper","found_in_text":"Syntology found this repository in the paper's own text; whether it is the authors' implementation is not asserted","community":"Not in the archive's code links for this paper; a community repository Syntology harvested"},"n_pointer_only_for_licence":0,"samples":[{"code_sha256_prefix":"9321d1110a5d3c62","entry":"damage_cube","repo":"real-itu/3d-artefacts-nca","repo_kind":"official","path":"artefact_nca/trainer/voxel_ca_trainer.py","file_url":"https://github.com/real-itu/3d-artefacts-nca/blob/HEAD/artefact_nca/trainer/voxel_ca_trainer.py","link_basis":"first_harvest_node","language":"python","status":"ran_fixture","verification_level":1,"contract_check":"RAISES","metamorphic_tier":"invariant","behaviour_fingerprint":true,"licence":"MIT","inline_ok":true,"mcp_get_code":{"code_sha256":"9321d1110a5d3c62"}},{"code_sha256_prefix":"1c7524ea425d2b5d","entry":"damage_sphere","repo":"real-itu/3d-artefacts-nca","repo_kind":"official","path":"artefact_nca/trainer/voxel_ca_trainer.py","file_url":"https://github.com/real-itu/3d-artefacts-nca/blob/HEAD/artefact_nca/trainer/voxel_ca_trainer.py","link_basis":"first_harvest_node","language":"python","status":"ran_fixture","verification_level":1,"contract_check":"RAISES","metamorphic_tier":"invariant","behaviour_fingerprint":true,"licence":"MIT","inline_ok":true,"mcp_get_code":{"code_sha256":"1c7524ea425d2b5d"}}]},"arxiv_metadata":null,"syntology_extracted_results":null}