---
license: mit
pretty_name: Dexterous Manipulation Benchmark — Cross-Method Video Grid
tags: [robotics, manipulation, benchmark, dexterous-hands]
task_categories: [robotics]
---
# Dexterous Manipulation Benchmark — Cross-Method Video Grid
**3 methods × 4 hands × 7 OakInk-v2 bimanual trajectories**, all rendered under an identical 720×480 @ 30fps `BENCH_CAMERA` so the paper tile grid lines up frame-for-frame.
> Metrics in [`ckwolfe/benchmarks-viz-tiles`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/ckwolfe/benchmarks-viz-tiles) · trained checkpoints in [`ckwolfe/benchmarks-trained-ckpts`](https://huggingface.co/ckwolfe/benchmarks-trained-ckpts).
---
## Paper comparison table
| method | class | simulator | n eval cells | ADD ↓ (m) | tracking_err ↓ (m) | success ↑ | cost / cell | standardized videos |
|---|---|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| **ManipTrans** | closed-loop RL (residual) | IsaacGym | 27 | — | **0.040** | — | ~2 s | **21/28** |
| **DexMachina** | closed-loop RL (PPO) | Genesis | 225 | **0.244** | — | 0.191 | ~300 s | 0/28 |
| **Spider** | sampling (MJWP) | MuJoCo-Warp | 28 | — | 0.083 | 0.357 | ~600 s | 0/28 |
_Reference trajectory videos (kinematic replay of the demonstrator under the same camera) are published separately as a visual quality reference — not a peer method. See the reference-only appendix section below if you need them._
---
## Video grid — ManipTrans (OakInk-v2)
The paper's closed-loop-RL column. Videos are MT's captured rollout `qpos` replayed through the shared `BENCH_CAMERA` MuJoCo scene. Xhand joint names auto-match the MJ scene (24/38 joints); allegro / inspire currently fall back to a linear DOF mapping, which leaves the hand frozen (follow-up: per-hand name translation table).
### `allegro`
| lift_board | pick_spoon | pour_tube | stir_beaker | uncap | unplug | wipe_board |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | | | | | | |
### `inspire`
| lift_board | pick_spoon | pour_tube | stir_beaker | uncap | unplug | wipe_board |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | | | | | | |
### `schunk`
| lift_board | pick_spoon | pour_tube | stir_beaker | uncap | unplug | wipe_board |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| · | · | · | · | · | · | · |
### `xhand`
| lift_board | pick_spoon | pour_tube | stir_beaker | uncap | unplug | wipe_board |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | | | | | | |
---
## Coverage summary
| method | real eval cells | standardized videos |
|---|---:|---:|
| ManipTrans | oakink 27/28, arctic 0/28 | 21/28 |
| DexMachina | arctic 225/28=8-rep, oakink 0/28 | 0/28 (native renders only) |
| Spider | oakink 28/28 sampled / 12/28 real row | 0/28 (native renders only) |
OakInk bimanual tasks: `lift_board · pick_spoon_bowl · pour_tube · stir_beaker · uncap_alcohol_burner · unplug · wipe_board`.
Arctic tasks: `ketchup30 · box30 · mixer30 · ketchup40 · mixer40 · notebook40 · waffleiron40` (s01 subject).
---
## Methods
**ManipTrans** — closed-loop residual-RL atop per-hand PPO imitator, IsaacGym. [Paper](https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.01385) · [Upstream](https://github.com/ManipTrans/ManipTrans). This benchmark ships imitators for `{allegro, inspire, xhand}`; schunk retrain in progress.
**DexMachina** — rl_games PPO in Genesis, 140 arctic checkpoints from upstream. [Paper](https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.24853) · [Upstream](https://github.com/MandiZhao/dexmachina). OakInk not publicly released; from-scratch is ~35 GPU-days/cell.
**Spider** — sampling-based MPC on MuJoCo-Warp. [Upstream](https://github.com/facebookresearch/spider). MJWP sampling complete 28/28 oakink; real-row MetricsRow emission partial.
---
## Metric schema
`shared/bench/schema.py::MetricsRow`. Key fields:
| field | units | notes |
|---|---|---|
| `success_rate` | 0–1 | per-episode outcome mean |
| `tracking_err_mean` | meters | position err vs reference; blanked if divergent (>1 m) |
| `add_mean` | meters | Average Distance of Displacement |
| `sim_steps` | — | hard cap via `BENCH_MAX_STEPS` |
| `upstream_commit` | git SHA | captured on host |
| `sim_backend` | str | `isaacgym` / `genesis` / `mjwp` |
Row-append validator rejects `tracking_err_mean > tracking_err_max + 0.01` (the divergent-rollout failure mode).
---
## Reviewer notes
**"5 seeds" = 5 training reps (shared seed = 42).** All DM checkpoints share `seed: 42` per each `config.json`. Variance reflects rl_games's env-step + mini-epoch stochasticity, not a seed sweep.
**Open-loop vs closed-loop.** Spider (sampling) runs in a fundamentally different regime from MT/DM (learned closed-loop). Paper Table 1 splits into two sub-tables keyed on `METHOD_AXIS_CLASS` in `shared/bench/plot_style.py`.
**Simulator confound.** MT=IsaacGym, DM=Genesis, Spider=MuJoCo-Warp. Contact model, integrator, and timestep differ — tracking-err is within-class comparable, cross-class illustrative only.
---
## Known gaps
- **DM × oakink training** — public ckpts arctic-only; from-scratch is ~35 GPU-days/cell.
- **MT × schunk imitator** — retraining overnight.
- **Arctic standardized videos** — Spider arctic preprocess stops at stage-1.
- **MT allegro/inspire video joint-name mapping** — xhand 24/38 auto-matched; others need per-hand translation table.
---
## Reference kinematic trajectories (not part of the method comparison)
For qualitative inspection of the reference demonstrations each method is trying to track, `videos/std_*.mp4` contain the per-hand kinematic replay of the Spider-preprocessed trajectory under the same `BENCH_CAMERA`. These are **not** a 4th method — they are what the policies are being compared against.
---
## Citation
```bibtex
@misc{dex-manip-benchmark-2026,
title = {Dexterous Manipulation Benchmark — Cross-Method Video Grid},
author = {C.K. Wolfe and T. Sadjadpour},
year = {2026},
url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/ckwolfe/dex-manip-benchmark},
}
```