ExploreAI: Agentic Exploration Knowledge Bases for Reproducible Observable-Regression Testing of Black-Box VR and 3D Applications
Organizations: The University of Arizona · East Carolina University · The University of Texas at San Antonio · Villanova University
Abstract
Black-box VR and 3D applications are difficult to regression test because observable failures depend on where a tester moves, what objects are visible, and which views are captured. Manual exploratory testing can find such failures, but its evidence is time-consuming to reproduce; systematic sweeps are reproducible, but they lack semantic guidance and spend exploration budget on low-value viewpoints. We observe that an LLM can make the high-level decisions a human tester makes during exploration: interpreting a task, choosing which objects to inspect, grouping related objects, recording what it saw, and deciding when missing evidence should trigger another attempt. Based on this observation, we present ExploreAI, an LLM-driven agentic framework that offloads repeated perception, navigation, multi-view capture execution, and logging to specialized modules while using the LLM for planning, evidence recording, capture-policy decisions, and verification decisions. ExploreAI constructs an Exploration Knowledge Base (EKB): a structured, per-object record of one exploration run. For each object the agent finds, the EKB stores the scan evidence that exposed it, the selected target, the navigation path, the multi-view capture, and the self-verification result. The EKB is a reusable testing artifact that supports reproducible observable-regression checking across versions of a VR or 3D application. Across six indoor and outdoor scenes in Unity, AI2-THOR, and BeamNG, ExploreAI constructs high-completeness EKBs under both complete and target exploration, and an LLM-module ablation shows where semantic planning, capture policy, evidence recording, and self-verification contribute. Reproduction pilots further show that EKB-guided traces help both humans and LLM-based reproducers reproduce exact object-view evidence more effectively than conditions without EKB context.
Figures & tables
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Score weights | 0.40, 0.25, 0.15, 0.10, 0.10 |
| YOLO min box area ratio | 0.0004 |
| Movement budget | no target cap; max scan cycles 30; speed 2.2 |
| Approach stop | target-area ratio 0.10 |
| Capture setting | 1280 720 at 5 FPS |
| Orbit policy | 36 steps; 0.12 s/step; adaptive radius |
| Scene | Complete exploration | Target exploration | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Object | View | Path | Log | Object | View | Path | Log | |
| AI2-THOR | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 |
| BeamNG | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 |
| Cartoon City | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 |
| Unity Road | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 |
| Korean Bar | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 |
| Scene | GPT-5.4 | GPT-mini | Gemini-Pro | Gemini-Lite | Claude-Opus | Claude-Haiku | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C | T | C | T | C | T | C | T | C | T | C | T | |
| AI2 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 |
| BNG | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 |
| Cartoon | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 |
| Road | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 |
| Bar | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 |
| Model | Complete exploration | Target exploration | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tok./run | Cost/run | Time/run | Tok./run | Cost/run | Time/run | |
| GPT-5.4 | 17.8K | $0.036 | 9.6 min | 10.7K | $0.022 | 4.2 min |
| GPT-5 mini | 12.2K | $0.010 | 9.1 min | 7.2K | $0.009 | 3.9 min |
| Gemini 2.5 Pro | 13.5K | $0.052 | 9.4 min | 7.3K | $0.040 | 4.1 min |
| Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | 2.8K | $0.001 | 8.8 min | 2.1K | $0.001 | 3.7 min |
| Claude Opus 4.8 | 11.5K | $0.293 | 9.8 min | 5.6K | $0.181 | 4.3 min |
| Condition | Obj. | View | Nav. | Log |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full ExploreAI | 0.871 | 0.825 | 1.000 | 1.000 |
| YOLO w/o LLM Rec. | 0.871 | 0.825 | 0.720 | 0.650 |
| No LLM planning | 0.323 | 0.209 | 1.000 | 1.000 |
| No LLM multi-view | 0.871 | 0.610 | 1.000 | 1.000 |
| No LLM self-verification | 0.710 | 0.453 | 1.000 | 0.500 |
| Condition | AI2-THOR | BeamNG | Cartoon City | Unity Road | Korean Bar | Urban Cabin | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Complete | Target | Complete | Target | Complete | Target | Complete | Target | Complete | Target | Complete | Target | |
| Full ExploreAI | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 0.924 | 1.000 |
| YOLO without LLM recording | 0.900 | 0.925 | 0.905 | 0.930 | 0.895 | 0.920 | 0.900 | 0.925 | 0.885 | 0.915 | 0.767 | 0.850 |
| No LLM planning | 0.922 | 0.950 | 0.938 | 0.950 | 0.646 | 0.750 | 0.938 | 0.950 | 0.803 | 0.850 | 0.633 | 0.800 |
| No LLM multi-view | 0.925 | 0.925 | 0.925 | 0.925 | 0.900 | 0.900 | 0.920 | 0.920 | 0.895 | 0.895 | 0.870 | 0.913 |
| No LLM self-verification | 0.788 | 0.850 | 0.850 | 0.900 | 0.830 | 0.900 | 0.825 | 0.900 | 0.800 | 0.850 | 0.666 | 0.840 |
| Actor | Version | Context | Complete Obj/View | Complete Time(s) | Target Obj/View | Target Time(s) | Tokens |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Human | No element change | Without EKB | 0.82/0.74 | 243 | 0.86/0.78 | 178 | – |
| Human | No element change | With EKB | 0.98/0.96 | 109 | 1.00/0.98 | 76 | – |
| Human | Element change | Without EKB | 0.72/0.61 | 286 | 0.78/0.66 | 211 | – |
| Human | Element change | With EKB | 0.94/0.90 | 132 | 0.96/0.92 | 93 | – |
| Automated | No element change | Without EKB | 0.58/0.46 | 2.4 | 0.61/0.49 | 2.1 | 5.3K/3.9K |
| Automated | No element change | With EKB | 0.98/0.97 | 2.2 | 1.00/0.98 | 1.9 | 6.8K/5.5K |
| Regression category | Injected | TP | FP | FN | P / R |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Object set (missing/added) | 12 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 / 1.000 |
| Wrong object (asset swap) | 6 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 1.000 / 0.833 |
| Movement / reachability | 12 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 / 1.000 |
| Lost view | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 / 1.000 |
| Overall | 36 | 35 | 0 | 1 | 1.000 / 0.972 |
Automated Software Testing
Automated software testing uses tools and algorithms to generate, run, and evaluate tests that find defects and prevent regressions.
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