diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 8e6b511..aa824b4 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -40,8 +40,15 @@ So the whole blocker is one operation: **submanifold 3×3×3 convolution**.
 - [x] `SubMConv3d` (k=3 and k=1) — **7/7 correctness tests pass**, max err 3e-7 vs an
       independent naive reference
 - [x] Weight converter, all 7 checkpoints → MLX safetensors (3.3 GB)
-- [ ] Remaining sparse ops: `SparseLinear`, `SparseGroupNorm32`, activations, attention
-- [ ] Model graphs: V-VAE, V-Flow, T-VAE, T-Flow, encoders
+- [x] Remaining sparse ops — `SparseLinear`, `LayerNorm32`, `SparseGroupNorm32`,
+      activations, `SparseResBlock`, self/cross attention, transformer blocks.
+      **6/6 pass against torch** (real oracle; only spconv was unavailable)
+- [x] `SparseDownsample` (max-pool, not average — upstream passes `reduce="amax"`)
+- [x] **V-VAE encoder runs on the real checkpoint** — 102/102 params loaded, 0 missing,
+      0 unmapped. 16,934 voxels -> 56 latent voxels in 135 ms on m3ultra; latent is
+      mean +0.05 / std 0.92, i.e. the ~N(0,1) a KL-trained VAE should produce
+- [ ] V-VAE decoder (multi-resolution + pruning heads) -> reconstruction
+- [ ] V-Flow, T-VAE, T-Flow, voxel encoder
 - [ ] End-to-end inference
 - [ ] Fleet benchmark (m1max / m2max / m4pro / m1ultra / m3ultra)
 
@@ -90,9 +97,15 @@ in both. Tests also cover batch isolation, isolated voxels, and indice-map hit r
 
 **One assumption remains unverified**: whether spconv gathers `feats[c+d]`
 (cross-correlation — the deep-learning convention, and what this implements) or
-`feats[c-d]`. A flipped kernel is numerically silent. It gets settled end-to-end: the
-V-VAE is an autoencoder, so a clean reconstruction confirms the orientation. Run the
-converter with `--flip-kernel` to test the alternative without touching code.
+`feats[c-d]`.
+
+Latent statistics were tried as a cheap discriminator and **do not resolve it**. The flip
+is definitely not a no-op (max output delta 3.53), but both orientations yield a
+plausible near-unit-normal latent — std 0.919 as-implemented vs 0.945 flipped, a gap well
+inside the noise of a synthetic input. So the question genuinely needs the decoder:
+reconstruction quality is the discriminator, since a mirrored kernel should produce
+visibly wrong geometry while leaving the statistics intact. `--flip-kernel` builds the
+alternative.
 
 ## Use
 
diff --git a/lato_mlx/models/__init__.py b/lato_mlx/models/__init__.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/lato_mlx/models/vvae.py b/lato_mlx/models/vvae.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fbc055a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lato_mlx/models/vvae.py
@@ -0,0 +1,229 @@
+"""LATO.2 Vertex VAE encoder in MLX.
+
+Architecture read off the released weights rather than constructor defaults, because
+upstream's defaults (attn_mode="swin", pe_mode="ape", qk_rms_norm) are overridden by the
+config the checkpoint was actually trained with. What the tensors say:
+
+    encoder.input_layer1            [32, 64]     SparseLinear 64 -> 32
+    encoder.downsample.0..3                      SparseResBlock, each ×2 downsample
+                                                 32->64, 64->128, 128->256, 256->512
+    encoder.self_attn.input_layer   [512, 512]
+    encoder.self_attn.blocks.0..7                8 transformer blocks, 512ch, 8 heads
+                                                 (to_qkv is [1536,512] = 3*512)
+    out_layer                       [2*latent]   SparseLinear -> mean/logvar
+
+No rope, no qk_rms_norm, and no positional-embedding tensors exist in the checkpoint,
+so those upstream branches are inert here. Transformer norms are non-affine; the
+ResBlock's norm1 is affine and norm2 is not.
+
+`downsample` is max-pooling (upstream passes reduce="amax" despite saying "average
+pooling" in its docstring).
+"""
+
+from __future__ import annotations
+
+from pathlib import Path
+from typing import Optional
+
+import mlx.core as mx
+import mlx.nn as nn
+
+from ..sparse.ops import (
+    LayerNorm32,
+    SparseLinear,
+    SparseResBlock,
+    SparseTransformerBlock,
+)
+from ..sparse.tensor import SparseTensor, downsample
+
+
+class DownResBlock(nn.Module):
+    """SparseResBlock preceded by a ×2 max-pool, as upstream's downsample=True does."""
+
+    def __init__(self, channels: int, out_channels: int):
+        super().__init__()
+        self.block = SparseResBlock(channels, out_channels)
+
+    def __call__(self, x: SparseTensor) -> SparseTensor:
+        return self.block(downsample(x, 2))
+
+
+class SparseTransformerBase(nn.Module):
+    def __init__(self, channels: int, num_blocks: int, num_heads: int, mlp_ratio=4.0):
+        super().__init__()
+        self.input_layer = SparseLinear(channels, channels)
+        self.blocks = [
+            SparseTransformerBlock(channels, num_heads, mlp_ratio)
+            for _ in range(num_blocks)
+        ]
+
+    def __call__(self, x: SparseTensor) -> SparseTensor:
+        x = self.input_layer(x)
+        for blk in self.blocks:
+            x = blk(x)
+        return x
+
+
+class VertexVAEEncoder(nn.Module):
+    def __init__(
+        self,
+        in_channels: int = 64,
+        model_channels: int = 512,
+        num_downsample: int = 4,
+        num_blocks: int = 8,
+        num_head_channels: int = 64,
+        latent_dim: int = 8,
+    ):
+        super().__init__()
+        self.model_channels = model_channels
+        self.latent_dim = latent_dim
+        self.input_layer1 = SparseLinear(in_channels, model_channels >> num_downsample)
+        # upstream builds these with i = num_downsample-1 .. 0, so list index 0 is the
+        # narrowest stage (32 -> 64) and the last is 256 -> 512.
+        self.downsample = [
+            DownResBlock(model_channels >> (i + 1), model_channels >> i)
+            for i in range(num_downsample - 1, -1, -1)
+        ]
+        self.self_attn = SparseTransformerBase(
+            model_channels, num_blocks, model_channels // num_head_channels
+        )
+        self.final_norm = LayerNorm32(model_channels, affine=False, eps=1e-5)
+        self.out_layer = SparseLinear(model_channels, latent_dim * 2)
+
+    def __call__(self, x: SparseTensor) -> SparseTensor:
+        x = self.input_layer1(x)
+        for blk in self.downsample:
+            x = blk(x)
+        h = self.self_attn(x)
+        h = h.replace(self.final_norm(h.feats))
+        return self.out_layer(h)
+
+    def encode(self, x: SparseTensor, sample: bool = False) -> SparseTensor:
+        """Returns the latent. `sample=False` takes the posterior mode (deterministic)."""
+        h = self(x)
+        mean = h.feats[:, : self.latent_dim]
+        if not sample:
+            return h.replace(mean)
+        logvar = mx.clip(h.feats[:, self.latent_dim :], -30.0, 20.0)
+        std = mx.exp(0.5 * logvar)
+        return h.replace(mean + std * mx.random.normal(mean.shape))
+
+
+# ------------------------------------------------------------------ loading
+
+# checkpoint key -> module path. Upstream nests the spconv module one level deeper
+# (`conv1.conv.weight`), and wraps Linear inside our SparseLinear (`.linear.`).
+def _remap(key: str) -> Optional[str]:
+    k = key
+    if not k.startswith(("encoder.", "out_layer.")):
+        return None  # decoder / expander parts, not part of the encoder graph
+    k = k.replace("encoder.", "", 1)
+    if k.startswith("downsample."):
+        parts = k.split(".")
+        idx = parts[1]
+        rest = ".".join(parts[2:])
+        rest = rest.replace("conv1.conv.", "conv1.").replace("conv2.conv.", "conv2.")
+        if rest.startswith("skip_connection."):
+            rest = rest.replace("skip_connection.", "skip_connection.linear.")
+        return f"downsample.{idx}.block.{rest}"
+    if k.startswith("self_attn.input_layer."):
+        return k.replace("self_attn.input_layer.", "self_attn.input_layer.linear.")
+    if k.startswith("self_attn.blocks."):
+        return k.replace(".mlp.mlp.0.", ".mlp.mlp_0.").replace(".mlp.mlp.2.", ".mlp.mlp_2.")
+    if k.startswith("input_layer1."):
+        return k.replace("input_layer1.", "input_layer1.linear.")
+    if key.startswith("out_layer."):
+        return key.replace("out_layer.", "out_layer.linear.")
+    return k
+
+
+def infer_config(w: dict) -> dict:
+    """Derive the architecture from tensor shapes.
+
+    Upstream's constructor defaults do not describe the released checkpoint (latent_dim
+    defaults to 8 but the weights say 32), so the shapes are the only trustworthy source.
+    """
+    n_down = len({k.split(".")[2] for k in w if k.startswith("encoder.downsample.")})
+    n_blocks = len({k.split(".")[3] for k in w if k.startswith("encoder.self_attn.blocks.")})
+    in_ch = w["encoder.input_layer1.weight"].shape[1]
+    model_ch = w["encoder.self_attn.input_layer.weight"].shape[0]
+    latent_dim = w["out_layer.weight"].shape[0] // 2
+    return {
+        "in_channels": in_ch,
+        "model_channels": model_ch,
+        "num_downsample": n_down,
+        "num_blocks": n_blocks,
+        "latent_dim": latent_dim,
+    }
+
+
+def load_encoder(weights_path: str | Path, **kw) -> tuple:
+    """Build the encoder and load converted weights. Returns (model, report)."""
+    w = mx.load(str(weights_path))
+    cfg = infer_config(w)
+    cfg.update(kw)  # explicit args win
+    model = VertexVAEEncoder(**cfg)
+
+    flat = dict(_flatten(model.parameters()))
+    mapped, missing, unused = {}, [], []
+    for k, v in w.items():
+        m = _remap(k)
+        if m is None:
+            continue
+        if m in flat:
+            if flat[m].shape != v.shape:
+                raise ValueError(f"shape mismatch {k} -> {m}: {flat[m].shape} vs {v.shape}")
+            mapped[m] = v
+        else:
+            unused.append(f"{k} -> {m}")
+    missing = [k for k in flat if k not in mapped]
+    if mapped:
+        model.update(_unflatten(mapped))
+    return model, {
+        "loaded": len(mapped),
+        "params": len(flat),
+        "missing": missing,
+        "unmapped": unused,
+    }
+
+
+def _flatten(tree, prefix=""):
+    if isinstance(tree, dict):
+        for k, v in tree.items():
+            yield from _flatten(v, f"{prefix}{k}.")
+    elif isinstance(tree, list):
+        for i, v in enumerate(tree):
+            yield from _flatten(v, f"{prefix}{i}.")
+    elif isinstance(tree, mx.array):
+        yield prefix[:-1], tree
+
+
+def _unflatten(flat: dict):
+    root: dict = {}
+    for key, val in flat.items():
+        parts = key.split(".")
+        node = root
+        for i, p in enumerate(parts[:-1]):
+            nxt = parts[i + 1]
+            default = [] if nxt.isdigit() else {}
+            if isinstance(node, list):
+                idx = int(p)
+                while len(node) <= idx:
+                    node.append({})
+                if not isinstance(node[idx], (dict, list)) or (
+                    isinstance(default, list) and not isinstance(node[idx], list)
+                ):
+                    node[idx] = default
+                node = node[idx]
+            else:
+                if p not in node or not isinstance(node[p], (dict, list)):
+                    node[p] = default
+                node = node[p]
+        if isinstance(node, list):
+            idx = int(parts[-1])
+            while len(node) <= idx:
+                node.append(None)
+            node[idx] = val
+        else:
+            node[parts[-1]] = val
+    return root
diff --git a/lato_mlx/sparse/ops.py b/lato_mlx/sparse/ops.py
index 20020b3..44fc92f 100644
--- a/lato_mlx/sparse/ops.py
+++ b/lato_mlx/sparse/ops.py
@@ -135,15 +135,19 @@ class SparseResBlock(nn.Module):
 
 
 class SparseFeedForwardNet(nn.Module):
+    """Upstream is nn.Sequential(Linear, GELU, Linear), so its checkpoint keys are
+    `mlp.mlp.0` and `mlp.mlp.2` — index 1 is the activation and carries no weights.
+    Named `mlp_0`/`mlp_2` here because a Python list with a None hole does not survive
+    MLX's parameter tree; the loader remaps the dotted indices onto these."""
+
     def __init__(self, channels: int, mlp_ratio: float = 4.0):
         super().__init__()
         hidden = int(channels * mlp_ratio)
-        self.mlp = [nn.Linear(channels, hidden), None, nn.Linear(hidden, channels)]
+        self.mlp_0 = nn.Linear(channels, hidden)
+        self.mlp_2 = nn.Linear(hidden, channels)
 
     def __call__(self, x: SparseTensor) -> SparseTensor:
-        h = self.mlp[0](x.feats)
-        h = nn.gelu_approx(h)
-        return x.replace(self.mlp[2](h))
+        return x.replace(self.mlp_2(nn.gelu_approx(self.mlp_0(x.feats))))
 
 
 def _sdpa_per_batch(
diff --git a/lato_mlx/sparse/tensor.py b/lato_mlx/sparse/tensor.py
index fd5f376..6261a01 100644
--- a/lato_mlx/sparse/tensor.py
+++ b/lato_mlx/sparse/tensor.py
@@ -113,3 +113,47 @@ def subdivide(x: SparseTensor) -> SparseTensor:
         mx.array(new_coords, dtype=mx.int32),
         scale=tuple(s * 2 for s in x._scale),
     )
+
+
+def downsample(x: "SparseTensor", factor: int = 2) -> "SparseTensor":
+    """Downsample by `factor`, reducing colliding voxels with MAX.
+
+    Upstream's docstring says "average pooling" but the implementation passes
+    reduce="amax" (the `reduce='mean'` line is commented out). Following the code,
+    not the docstring — mean vs max here is numerically silent in shape and would
+    quietly change every downsampled feature.
+
+    Output coordinates come out sorted by the same packed code upstream sorts on, so
+    rows stay batch-contiguous as SparseTensor requires.
+    """
+    import numpy as _np
+
+    c = _np.asarray(x.coords, dtype=_np.int64).copy()
+    c[:, 1:] //= factor
+
+    maxs = c[:, 1:].max(axis=0) + 1
+    # OFFSET = reversed cumprod, matching upstream's packing
+    off = _np.array(
+        [maxs[0] * maxs[1] * maxs[2], maxs[1] * maxs[2], maxs[2], 1], dtype=_np.int64
+    )
+    code = (c * off).sum(axis=1)
+
+    uniq, inv = _np.unique(code, return_inverse=True)
+    feats = _np.asarray(x.feats)
+    out = _np.full((uniq.shape[0], feats.shape[1]), -_np.inf, dtype=feats.dtype)
+    _np.maximum.at(out, inv, feats)
+
+    new_coords = _np.stack(
+        [
+            uniq // off[0],
+            (uniq // off[1]) % maxs[0],
+            (uniq // off[2]) % maxs[1],
+            uniq % maxs[2],
+        ],
+        axis=-1,
+    ).astype(_np.int32)
+    return SparseTensor(
+        mx.array(out),
+        mx.array(new_coords),
+        scale=tuple(s * factor for s in x._scale),
+    )