Spatial Reasoning Benchmarks

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These benchmarks measure whether AI systems can go beyond recognizing objects to reason about geometry, direction, topology, perspective, and how scenes change over time. They use controlled synthetic puzzles, annotated images and videos, maps, and simulated or real embodied tasks, often with hierarchical tests and executable checks for precise answers or actions. Current models can handle some local relations but often fail at multi-step composition, consistent spatial maps across viewpoints, metric judgments, and long-horizon navigation. Structured representations, tools, active exploration, and targeted training can help, but reliable grounding in visual evidence and fair, standardized evaluation remain open challenges.

Latest papers

163 papers35 papers in the last four weeks, up 150% on the four weeks before. 0.2% of all new papers.

From Symbolic to Geometric: Enabling Spatial Reasoning in Large Language Models
Jun 3, 2026Chen Chu, Bita Azarijoo, Li Xiong +2Spatial Reasoning Benchmarks Multimodal Large Language Models
University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA, USA · Emory University Atlanta, GA, USA · Novateur Research Solutions Ashburn, Virginia, USA
OVO-S-Bench: A Hierarchical Benchmark for Streaming Spatial Intelligence in Multimodal LLMs
Jun 2, 2026Yifei Li, Pengyiang Liu, Yuhang Zang +4Spatial Reasoning Benchmarks Spatiotemporal Reasoning
Tsinghua University · Shanghai AI Laboratory · Beihang University
Eliciting Complex Spatial Reasoning in MLLMs through Wide-Baseline Matching
Jun 2, 2026Hao Zhong, Muzhi Zhu, Shenyan Zeng +8VLM Evaluation Spatial Reasoning Benchmarks
State Key Laboratory of CAD & CG, Zhejiang University · Ant Group · Westlake University
Consistent Yet Wrong: Evidence Insensitivity in Spatial Vision-Language Models
Jun 1, 2026S Divakar Bhat, Toshihiko YamasakiVLM Evaluation Multi-View Consistency
The University of Tokyo, Japan
PlanarBench: Evaluating LLM Spatial Reasoning via Planar Graph Drawing
Jun 1, 2026Oleksandr Nikitin, Anna KravchenkoSpatial Reasoning Benchmarks LLM Evaluation
ERGeoBench:A Comprehensive Benchmark for Embodied Reasoning and Geo-localization in Multimodal Large Language Models
May 29, 2026Kaiwen Xue, Tao Wei, Guoxin Zhang +5Multimodal Large Language Models Visual Spatial Reasoning
Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, China · State Key Laboratory of Networking and Switching Technology, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, China · School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China +2
SpatialAct: Probing Spatial Reasoning-to-Action Capabilities of VLM Agents in 3D Scenes
May 29, 2026Tianhui Liu, Jie Feng, Zhiheng Zheng +6Vision-Language Agents Visual Spatial Reasoning
1The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) · 2Zhongguancun Academy · 3Tsinghua University +1
Seeing Isn't Knowing: Do VLMs Know When Not to Answer Spatial Questions (and Why)?
May 28, 2026Yue Zhang, Zun Wang, Han Lin +3VLM Evaluation Spatial Reasoning Benchmarks
UNC Chapel Hill · Google Research
Why Far Looks Up: Probing Spatial Representation in Vision-Language Models
May 28, 2026Cheolhong Min, Jaeyun Jung, Daeun Lee +5Representation Learning Visual Spatial Reasoning
Seoul National University · The Ohio State University · NVIDIA
Embodied3DBench: Benchmarking Low-Level Embodied Spatial Intelligence of Vision Language Models
May 27, 2026Jiyao Zhang, Mingxu Zhang, Yitong Peng +8VLM Evaluation Spatial Reasoning Benchmarks
CFCS, School of CS, PKU Beijing, China · BUPT Beijing, China · PKU Beijing, China +2
Do LLMs Build World Models From Text? A Multilingual Diagnostic of Spatial Reasoning
May 27, 2026Zhikai Pan, Chih-Ting Liao, Chunrui Liu +5LLM World Models Multilingual Language Model Evaluation
University of New South Wales · Essential Energy · University of Alabama at Birmingham +3
EgoProx: Evaluating MLLMs on Egocentric 3D Proximity Reasoning Across a Cognitive Hierarchy
May 23, 2026Jinzhao Li, Yinuo Chen, Dongxu Piao +9Embodied Reasoning LLM Evaluation
College of AI, Tsinghua University · 2ByteDance · 3State Key Laboratory of General Artificial Intelligence, BIGAI
SpaceDG: Benchmarking Spatial Intelligence under Visual Degradation
May 21, 2026Xiaolong Zhou, Yifei Liu, Ziyang Gong +8VLM Robustness Spatial Reasoning Benchmarks
2Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory · University of Electronic Science and Technology of China · 6Beihang University +4
ArchSIBench: Benchmarking the Architectural Spatial Intelligence of Vision-Language Models
May 20, 2026Qirui Shen, Wenda Wang, Jiachen Lu +5VLM Evaluation Spatial Reasoning Benchmarks
School of Architecture, Tsinghua University
Do Vision-Language Models Understand 3D Scenes or Just Catalogue Objects?
May 19, 2026Animesh Maheshwari, Divyansh Sahu, Nishit VermaVLM Evaluation Spatial Reasoning Benchmarks
Deccan AI
ESI-Bench: Towards Embodied Spatial Intelligence that Closes the Perception-Action Loop
May 18, 2026Yining Hong, Jiageng Liu, Han Yin +5Active Perception Spatial Reasoning Benchmarks
1Stanford University · 2UCLA · 3Northwestern University
QSTRBench: a New Benchmark to Evaluate the Ability of Language Models to Reason with Qualitative Spatial and Temporal Calculi
May 18, 2026Anthony G. Cohn, Robert E. BlackwellSpatial Reasoning Benchmarks LLM Evaluation
School of Computer Science, The University of Leeds, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK · The Alan Turing Institute, British Library, 96 Euston Road, London, NW1 2DB, UK · Tongji University, Shanghai, China
CurveBench: A Benchmark for Exact Topological Reasoning over Nested Jordan Curves
May 13, 2026Amirreza Mohseni, Mona Mohammadi, Morteza Saghafian +1VLM Evaluation Spatial Reasoning Benchmarks
Maastricht University · Cornell University · TU Wien +1
3D Primitives are a Spatial Language for VLMs
May 12, 2026Junze Liu, Kun Qian, Florian Dubost +8Visually Grounded Reasoning 3D Spatial Reasoning
Unity Technologies
Beyond Localization: A Comprehensive Benchmark of Perspective-Conditioned Spatial Reasoning in MLLMs from Omnidirectional Images
May 12, 2026Yuangong Chen, Wai Keung Wong, Jiaxing Li +2Spatial Reasoning Benchmarks Visual Spatial Reasoning
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Hong Kong, China · Guangzhou University Guangzhou, China · Queen Mary, University of London London, United Kingdom +1
SleepWalk: A Three-Tier Benchmark for Stress-Testing Instruction-Guided Vision-Language Navigation
May 11, 2026Niyati Rawal, Sushant Ravva, Shah Alam Abir +5VLM Evaluation Spatial Reasoning Benchmarks
† Indian AI Research Organization (IAIRO), India · ⋆ĸragya Lab, BITS Pilani Goa, India · ¶ University of Dhaka, Bangladesh +3
The Cartesian Shortcut: Re-evaluate Vision Reasoning in Polar Coordinate Space
May 11, 2026Xia Hu, Zhenrui Yue, Brian Potetz +4VLM Evaluation Spatial Reasoning Benchmarks
Google DeepMind · Stanford University · Google Research
From Where Things Are to What They Are For: Benchmarking Spatial-Functional Intelligence in Multimodal LLMs
May 4, 2026Le Zhang, Jihan Yang, Soundarya Krishnan +11Spatial Reasoning Benchmarks Visual Spatial Reasoning
1Mila - Qu´ebec AI Institute, UdeM · 2NYU · 3Apple +1
ReVSI: Rebuilding Visual Spatial Intelligence Evaluation for Accurate Assessment of VLM 3D Reasoning
Apr 27, 2026Yiming Zhang, Jiacheng Chen, Jiaqi Tan +3VLM Evaluation Spatial Reasoning Benchmarks
1Simon Fraser University · 2Hong Kong University of Science and Technology · University of Waterloo +1
SpaMEM: Benchmarking Dynamic Spatial Reasoning via Perception-Memory Integration in Embodied Environments
Apr 24, 2026Chih-Ting Liao, Xi Xiao, Chunlei Meng +6Multimodal Large Language Models Visual Spatial Reasoning
The University of New South Wales · The University of Alabama at Birmingham · Fudan University +4
Exploring Spatial Intelligence from a Generative Perspective
Apr 22, 2026Muzhi Zhu, Shunyao Jiang, Huanyi Zheng +9Spatial Reasoning Unified Multimodal Models
Zhejiang University, State Key Laboratory of CAD & CG · Ant Group · Zhejiang University of Technology +1
Chain-of-Thought Degrades Visual Spatial Reasoning Capabilities of Multimodal LLMs
Apr 17, 2026Sai Srinivas Kancheti, Aditya Sanjiv Kanade, Vineeth N. Balasubramanian +1Multimodal Model Evaluation Visual Spatial Reasoning
IIT, Hyderabad · Microsoft Research India
Mind's Eye: A Benchmark of Visual Abstraction, Transformation and Composition for Multimodal LLMs
Apr 17, 2026Rohit Sinha, Aditya Kanade, Sai Srinivas Kancheti +2Spatial Reasoning Benchmarks Visual Spatial Reasoning
CSE Dept., IIT Hyderabad Hyderabad, India · Microsoft Research Bengaluru, India
ARGOS: Who, Where, and When in Agentic Multi-Camera Person Search
Apr 14, 2026Myungchul Kim, Kwanyong Park, Junmo Kim +1Agent Benchmarks Spatial Reasoning Benchmarks
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Republic of Korea · University of Seoul, Republic of Korea · Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), Republic of Korea
Spatial Atlas: Compute-Grounded Reasoning for Spatial-Aware Research Agent Benchmarks
Apr 13, 2026Arun SharmaGeospatial QA Spatial Reasoning Benchmarks
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

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From Symbolic to Geometric: Enabling Spatial Reasoning in Large Language Models

Chen Chu, Bita Azarijoo, Li Xiong, Khurram Shafique+1

University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA, USA · Emory University Atlanta, GA, USA · Novateur Research Solutions Ashburn, Virginia, USA

Spatial Reasoning Benchmarks Multimodal Large Language Models Geometric Representation Learning Spatial Reasoning Spatial Reasoning in Language Models

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Recent large language models (LLMs) often appear to exhibit spatial reasoning ability; however, this capability is largely symbolic, arising from pattern matching over spatial language rather than true geometric reasoning over space. Because LLMs operate on discrete tokens, they lack native support for continuous spatial representations, explicit geometric computation, and structured spatial operators. To address this limitation, we introduce the Spatial Language Model (SLM), the first multimodal LLM that treats location information as a first-class modality and enables geometric spatial reasoning within the model's inference process. SLM directly operates on learned spatial representations rather than textual descriptions of spatial relations. To support effective training, we construct a Spatial Instruction Dataset that aligns spatial representations, atomic geometric operations, and natural language instructions. We further propose a new benchmark named SpatialEval, which is designed to evaluate spatial reasoning across attributes, distance, topology, and relative-position tasks. Extensive experiments show that SLM significantly outperforms existing LLM-based approaches that rely on symbolic reasoning via prompt engineering or textual abstraction, demonstrating the benefits of integrating geometric spatial representations for robust spatial reasoning. Our instruction dataset, evaluation benchmark, model training codes, and models' checkpoints can be found at: \hyperlink{https://github.com/chuchen2017/SLM}{https://github.com/chuchen2017/SLM}.