# XY-Cut++: Advanced Layout Ordering via Hierarchical Mask Mechanism on a Novel Benchmark

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.10258 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.10258/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Multimodal RAG, one of 15 directions in Retrieval-augmented generation.
- Builds on 15 of its 21 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 14 Apr 2025.

## Placed in

- Retrieval-augmented generation / [Multimodal RAG](https://mlsanity.com/rag/multimodal-rag/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 15 of 15)

- [LayoutLM: Pre-training of Text and Layout for Document Image Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.13318/) (2019)
- [LayoutLMv3: Pre-training for Document AI with Unified Text and Image Masking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.08387/) (2022)
- [Deep Layer Aggregation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.06484/) (2017)
- [LayoutLMv2: Multi-modal Pre-training for Visually-Rich Document Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.14740/) (2020)
- [PubLayNet: largest dataset ever for document layout analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.07836/) (2019)
- [MinerU: An Open-Source Solution for Precise Document Content Extraction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.18839/) (2024)
- [EAST: An Efficient and Accurate Scene Text Detector](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.03155/) (2017)
- [DocBank: A Benchmark Dataset for Document Layout Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.01038/) (2020)
- [OmniDocBench: Benchmarking Diverse PDF Document Parsing with Comprehensive Annotations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.07626/) (2024)
- [LayoutXLM: Multimodal Pre-training for Multilingual Visually-rich Document Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.08836/) (2021)
- [TableBank: A Benchmark Dataset for Table Detection and Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.01949/) (2019)
- [LayoutReader: Pre-training of Text and Layout for Reading Order Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.11591/) (2021)
- [XYLayoutLM: Towards Layout-Aware Multimodal Networks For Visually-Rich Document Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.06947/) (2022)
- [DocRes: A Generalist Model Toward Unifying Document Image Restoration Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.04408/) (2024)
- [PP-DocLayout: A Unified Document Layout Detection Model to Accelerate Large-Scale Data Construction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.17213/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [MonkeyOCR: Document Parsing with a Structure-Recognition-Relation Triplet Paradigm](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.05218/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Document Reading Order Recovery is a fundamental task in document image understanding, playing a pivotal role in enhancing Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and serving as a critical preprocessing step for large language models (LLMs). Existing methods often struggle with complex layouts(e.g., multi-column newspapers), high-overhead interactions between cross-modal elements (visual regions and textual semantics), and a lack of robust evaluation benchmarks. We introduce XY-Cut++, an advanced layout ordering method that integrates pre-mask processing, multi-granularity segmentation, and cross-modal matching to address these challenges. Our method significantly enhances layout ordering accuracy compared to traditional XY-Cut techniques. Specifically, XY-Cut++ achieves state-of-the-art performance (98.8 BLEU overall) while maintaining simplicity and efficiency. It outperforms existing baselines by up to 24% and demonstrates consistent accuracy across simple and complex layouts on the newly introduced DocBench-100 dataset. This advancement establishes a reliable foundation for document structure recovery, setting a new standard for layout ordering tasks and facilitating more effective RAG and LLM preprocessing.