Approaches are presented for training an inverse graphics network. An image synthesis network can generate training data for an inverse graphics network. In turn, the inverse graphics network can teach the synthesis network about the physical three-dimensional (3D) controls. Such an approach can provide for accurate 3D reconstruction of objects from 2D images using the trained inverse graphics network, while requiring little annotation of the provided training data. Such an approach can extract and disentangle 3D knowledge learned by generative models by utilizing differentiable renderers, enabling a disentangled generative model to function as a controllable 3D “neural renderer,” complementing traditional graphics renderers.