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arxiv:2509.18905

How Far are VLMs from Visual Spatial Intelligence? A Benchmark-Driven Perspective

Published on Sep 23
· Submitted by Songsong Yu on Sep 24
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Abstract

Research investigates visual spatial reasoning in vision-language models, highlighting gaps between perceptual and reasoning capabilities, and introduces SIBench as a benchmark for future research.

AI-generated summary

Visual Spatial Reasoning (VSR) is a core human cognitive ability and a critical requirement for advancing embodied intelligence and autonomous systems. Despite recent progress in Vision-Language Models (VLMs), achieving human-level VSR remains highly challenging due to the complexity of representing and reasoning over three-dimensional space. In this paper, we present a systematic investigation of VSR in VLMs, encompassing a review of existing methodologies across input modalities, model architectures, training strategies, and reasoning mechanisms. Furthermore, we categorize spatial intelligence into three levels of capability, ie, basic perception, spatial understanding, spatial planning, and curate SIBench, a spatial intelligence benchmark encompassing nearly 20 open-source datasets across 23 task settings. Experiments with state-of-the-art VLMs reveal a pronounced gap between perception and reasoning, as models show competence in basic perceptual tasks but consistently underperform in understanding and planning tasks, particularly in numerical estimation, multi-view reasoning, temporal dynamics, and spatial imagination. These findings underscore the substantial challenges that remain in achieving spatial intelligence, while providing both a systematic roadmap and a comprehensive benchmark to drive future research in the field. The related resources of this study are accessible at https://sibench.github.io/Awesome-Visual-Spatial-Reasoning/.

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How Far are VLMs from Visual Spatial Intelligence? A Benchmark-Driven Perspective

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This paper explores the challenges and advancements in Visual Spatial Reasoning (VSR), a critical cognitive ability for both humans and autonomous systems. The authors provide a comprehensive review of existing methodologies in VSR, covering input modalities, model architectures, training strategies, and reasoning techniques. They introduce SIBench, a new benchmark that integrates nearly 20 open-source datasets across 23 task settings. Experimental results with state-of-the-art VLMs highlight a clear gap between perceptual tasks, where models perform well, and reasoning tasks, such as numerical estimation and multi-view reasoning, where models struggle. The paper emphasizes the ongoing challenges in spatial intelligence and offers a roadmap for future research.

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