SpaceTools: Tool-Augmented Spatial Reasoning via Double Interactive RL
On the map: LLM reasoning → Spatial and embodied reasoning
Abstract (arXiv)
Vision Language Models (VLMs) demonstrate strong qualitative visual understanding, but struggle with metrically precise spatial reasoning required for embodied applications. The agentic paradigm promises that VLMs can use a wide variety of tools that could augment these capabilities, such as depth estimators, segmentation models, and pose estimators. Yet it remains an open challenge how to realize this vision without solely relying on handcrafted prompting strategies or enforcing fixed, predefined tool pipelines that limit VLMs' ability to discover optimal tool-use patterns. Reinforcement Learning could overcome this gap, but has so far been limited to reasoning with a single visual tool due to the large search space in multi-tool reasoning. We introduce Double Interactive Reinforcement Learning (DIRL), a two-phase training framework where VLMs learn to coordinate multiple tools through interactive exploration and feedback. In the teaching phase, we combine demonstrations from a single tool specialist trained via interactive RL with traces from a frontier model using all tools. In the exploration phase, the model further refines multi-tool coordination through continued RL. Our model, SpaceTools, with tool-augmented spatial reasoning ability, achieves state-of-the-art performance on spatial understanding benchmarks (RoboSpatial-Home, BLINK, BOP-ASK) and demonstrates reliable real-world manipulation using a 7-DOF robot as a tool. DIRL provides substantial improvements over the vanilla SFT (+12% on RoboSpatial) and RL (+16% on RoboSpatial) baselines. Project page: https://spacetools.github.io/.
Key facts. Cited by 20 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Spatial and embodied reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 47 of its 85 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 3 Dec 2025.
Builds on
47 of 85 references.
Closest ancestors · 12
Same direction, newest first
- 2025BOP-ASK: Object-Interaction Reasoning for Vision-Language Models20 Nov
- 2025TIGeR: Tool-Integrated Geometric Reasoning in Vision-Language Models for Robotics8 Oct
- 2025Reinforcing Spatial Reasoning in Vision-Language Models with Interwoven Thinking and Visual Drawing11 Jun
- 2025RoboRefer: Towards Spatial Referring with Reasoning in Vision-Language Models for Robotics4 Jun
- 2025SVQA-R1: Reinforcing Spatial Reasoning in MLLMs via View-Consistent Reward Optimization2 Jun
- 2025SpatialLLM: A Compound 3D-Informed Design towards Spatially-Intelligent Large Multimodal Models1 May
- 2025SpatialReasoner: Towards Explicit and Generalizable 3D Spatial Reasoning28 Apr
- 2025Perspective-Aware Reasoning in Vision-Language Models via Mental Imagery Simulation24 Apr
- 2025Cosmos-Reason1: From Physical Common Sense To Embodied Reasoning18 Mar
- 2025Visual Agentic AI for Spatial Reasoning with a Dynamic API10 Feb
- 2025SpatialCoT: Advancing Spatial Reasoning through Coordinate Alignment and Chain-of-Thought for Embodied Task Planning17 Jan
- 2024SpatialPIN: Enhancing Spatial Reasoning Capabilities of Vision-Language Models through Prompting and Interacting 3D Priors18 Mar
Other references · 35
- 2023GPT-4 Technical Reportcited by 18,132
- 2024DeepSeekMath: Pushing the Limits of Mathematical Reasoning in Open Language Modelscited by 8,851
- 2025DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learningcited by 6,146
- 2025Qwen2.5-VL Technical Reportcited by 5,418
- 2024SAM 2: Segment Anything in Images and Videoscited by 2,784
- 2024OpenVLA: An Open-Source Vision-Language-Action Modelcited by 2,777
- 2024HybridFlow: A Flexible and Efficient RLHF Frameworkcited by 1,980
- 2021WebGPT: Browser-assisted question-answering with human feedbackcited by 1,722
- 2025Search-R1: Training LLMs to Reason and Leverage Search Engines with Reinforcement Learningcited by 1,371
- 2025Kimi k1.5: Scaling Reinforcement Learning with LLMscited by 1,193
- 2023VILA: On Pre-training for Visual Language Modelscited by 686
- 2024BLINK: Multimodal Large Language Models Can See but Not Perceivecited by 529
23 more
- 2025VLM-R1: A Stable and Generalizable R1-style Large Vision-Language Modelcited by 515
- 2025Visual-RFT: Visual Reinforcement Fine-Tuningcited by 501
- 2025DeepEyes: Incentivizing "Thinking with Images" via Reinforcement Learningcited by 398
- 2024Depth Pro: Sharp Monocular Metric Depth in Less Than a Secondcited by 395
- 2025ReTool: Reinforcement Learning for Strategic Tool Use in LLMscited by 377
- 2025R1-Onevision: Advancing Generalized Multimodal Reasoning through Cross-Modal Formalizationcited by 364
- 2023Set-of-Mark Prompting Unleashes Extraordinary Visual Grounding in GPT-4Vcited by 291
- 2024RoboPoint: A Vision-Language Model for Spatial Affordance Prediction for Roboticscited by 242
- 2024ToolACE: Winning the Points of LLM Function Callingcited by 204
- 2025Imagine while Reasoning in Space: Multimodal Visualization-of-Thoughtcited by 204
- 2025ReSearch: Learning to Reason with Search for LLMs via Reinforcement Learningcited by 152
- 2025From Flatland to Space: Teaching Vision-Language Models to Perceive and Reason in 3Dcited by 127
- 2024xLAM: A Family of Large Action Models to Empower AI Agent Systemscited by 108
- 2025Adaptive Chain-of-Focus Reasoning via Dynamic Visual Search and Zooming for Efficient VLMscited by 94
- 2025RoboBrain 2.0 Technical Reportcited by 87
- 2025Gemini Robotics 1.5: Pushing the Frontier of Generalist Robots with Advanced Embodied Reasoning, Thinking, and Motion Transfercited by 86
- 2025VTool-R1: VLMs Learn to Think with Images via Reinforcement Learning on Multimodal Tool Usecited by 84
- 2025Grounded Reinforcement Learning for Visual Reasoningcited by 80
- 2025Vision-R1: Evolving Human-Free Alignment in Large Vision-Language Models via Vision-Guided Reinforcement Learningcited by 68
- 2025Nemotron-Research-Tool-N1: Exploring Tool-Using Language Models with Reinforced Reasoningcited by 67
- 2024m&m's: A Benchmark to Evaluate Tool-Use for multi-step multi-modal Taskscited by 38
- 2025GraspGen: A Diffusion-based Framework for 6-DOF Grasping with On-Generator Trainingcited by 32
- 2025DepthLM: Metric Depth From Vision Language Modelscited by 29
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Citing papers per year: 2026: 20.
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- 2026Zooming without Zooming: Region-to-Image Distillation for Fine-Grained Multimodal Perceptioncited by 47
- 2026SpatialClaw: Rethinking Action Interface for Agentic Spatial Reasoningcited by 13
- 2026GeoEyes: On-Demand Visual Focusing for Evidence-Grounded Understanding of Ultra-High-Resolution Remote Sensing Imagerycited by 9
- 2026S-Agent: Spatial Tool-Use Elicits Reasoning for Spatial Intelligencecited by 7
- 2026RoboStream: Weaving Spatio-Temporal Reasoning with Memory in Vision-Language Models for Roboticscited by 6
- 2026LAST: Leveraging Tools as Hints to Enhance Spatial Reasoning for Multimodal Large Language Modelscited by 2
- 2026World2Mind: Cognition Toolkit for Allocentric Spatial Reasoning in Foundation Modelscited by 1
- 2026Agentic AI for Remote Sensing: Technical Challenges and Research Directionscited by 1
- 2026SPACENUM: Revisiting Spatial Numerical Understanding in VLMscited by 1
- 2026Why Far Looks Up: Probing Spatial Representation in Vision-Language Modelscited by 1
- 2026AlloSpatial: Agentic Harness Framework for Spatial Reasoning in Foundation Modelscited by 1
- 2026Ouroboros-Spatial: Closing the Data-Model Loop for Spatial Reasoningcited by 1
8 more
- 2026SpatialCLI: Learning to Reason With Spatial Tools, Then Without Themcited by 1
- 2026R3D: Quantitative 3D Spatial Reasoning for Egocentric Wearablescited by 0
- 2026PROBE: Manipulation-Grounded Visual Question Answering with VLM Agentscited by 0
- 2026Seeing Is Not Measuring: Tool-Augmented Metric Spatial Reasoning for Vision-Language Modelscited by 0
- 2026CityToolVQA: Tool-Augmented Visual Question Answering for 3D Spatial Cognition in Urban Low-Altitude Environmentscited by 0
- 2026SpatialCORE: Confidence-Aware Grounded Spatial Reasoning in Large Vision--Language Modelscited by 0
- 2026Soft Spatial Reasoningcited by 0
- 2026From Reasoning Failures to Composable Video Spatial Intelligencecited by 0
- 2026From Reasoning Failures to Composable Video Spatial Intelligence1 Oct 2026
- 2026Soft Spatial Reasoning30 Sep 2026
- 2026SpatialCORE: Confidence-Aware Grounded Spatial Reasoning in Large Vision--Language Models30 Sep 2026
- 2026CityToolVQA: Tool-Augmented Visual Question Answering for 3D Spatial Cognition in Urban Low-Altitude Environments26 Sep 2026
- 2026Seeing Is Not Measuring: Tool-Augmented Metric Spatial Reasoning for Vision-Language Models24 Sep 2026
- 2026PROBE: Manipulation-Grounded Visual Question Answering with VLM Agents17 Aug 2026
- 2026SpatialCLI: Learning to Reason With Spatial Tools, Then Without Them30 Jul 2026
- 2026R3D: Quantitative 3D Spatial Reasoning for Egocentric Wearables3 Jul 2026
- 2026S-Agent: Spatial Tool-Use Elicits Reasoning for Spatial Intelligence18 Jun 2026
- 2026SpatialClaw: Rethinking Action Interface for Agentic Spatial Reasoning11 Jun 2026
- 2026Ouroboros-Spatial: Closing the Data-Model Loop for Spatial Reasoning10 Jun 2026
- 2026AlloSpatial: Agentic Harness Framework for Spatial Reasoning in Foundation Models8 Jun 2026
8 more
- 2026Why Far Looks Up: Probing Spatial Representation in Vision-Language Models28 May 2026
- 2026SPACENUM: Revisiting Spatial Numerical Understanding in VLMs22 May 2026
- 2026Agentic AI for Remote Sensing: Technical Challenges and Research Directions27 Apr 2026
- 2026LAST: Leveraging Tools as Hints to Enhance Spatial Reasoning for Multimodal Large Language Models8 Apr 2026
- 2026RoboStream: Weaving Spatio-Temporal Reasoning with Memory in Vision-Language Models for Robotics13 Mar 2026
- 2026World2Mind: Cognition Toolkit for Allocentric Spatial Reasoning in Foundation Models10 Mar 2026
- 2026GeoEyes: On-Demand Visual Focusing for Evidence-Grounded Understanding of Ultra-High-Resolution Remote Sensing Imagery15 Feb 2026
- 2026Zooming without Zooming: Region-to-Image Distillation for Fine-Grained Multimodal Perception12 Feb 2026
- 2026SpatialClaw: Rethinking Action Interface for Agentic Spatial Reasoningcited by 13
- 2026RoboStream: Weaving Spatio-Temporal Reasoning with Memory in Vision-Language Models for Roboticscited by 6
- 2026LAST: Leveraging Tools as Hints to Enhance Spatial Reasoning for Multimodal Large Language Modelscited by 2
- 2026World2Mind: Cognition Toolkit for Allocentric Spatial Reasoning in Foundation Modelscited by 1
- 2026Why Far Looks Up: Probing Spatial Representation in Vision-Language Modelscited by 1
- 2026AlloSpatial: Agentic Harness Framework for Spatial Reasoning in Foundation Modelscited by 1
- 2026Ouroboros-Spatial: Closing the Data-Model Loop for Spatial Reasoningcited by 1
- 2026SpatialCLI: Learning to Reason With Spatial Tools, Then Without Themcited by 1
- 2026PROBE: Manipulation-Grounded Visual Question Answering with VLM Agentscited by 0
- 2026Seeing Is Not Measuring: Tool-Augmented Metric Spatial Reasoning for Vision-Language Modelscited by 0
- 2026SpatialCORE: Confidence-Aware Grounded Spatial Reasoning in Large Vision--Language Modelscited by 0
- 2026Soft Spatial Reasoningcited by 0
12 most cited of 13 All 13 (JSON)
- 2026From Reasoning Failures to Composable Video Spatial Intelligence1 Oct 2026
- 2026Soft Spatial Reasoning30 Sep 2026
- 2026SpatialCORE: Confidence-Aware Grounded Spatial Reasoning in Large Vision--Language Models30 Sep 2026
- 2026Seeing Is Not Measuring: Tool-Augmented Metric Spatial Reasoning for Vision-Language Models24 Sep 2026
- 2026PROBE: Manipulation-Grounded Visual Question Answering with VLM Agents17 Aug 2026
- 2026SpatialCLI: Learning to Reason With Spatial Tools, Then Without Them30 Jul 2026
- 2026SpatialClaw: Rethinking Action Interface for Agentic Spatial Reasoning11 Jun 2026
- 2026Ouroboros-Spatial: Closing the Data-Model Loop for Spatial Reasoning10 Jun 2026
- 2026AlloSpatial: Agentic Harness Framework for Spatial Reasoning in Foundation Models8 Jun 2026
- 2026Why Far Looks Up: Probing Spatial Representation in Vision-Language Models28 May 2026
- 2026LAST: Leveraging Tools as Hints to Enhance Spatial Reasoning for Multimodal Large Language Models8 Apr 2026
- 2026RoboStream: Weaving Spatio-Temporal Reasoning with Memory in Vision-Language Models for Robotics13 Mar 2026
12 newest of 13 All 13 (JSON)
- 2026Zooming without Zooming: Region-to-Image Distillation for Fine-Grained Multimodal Perceptioncited by 47
- 2026GeoEyes: On-Demand Visual Focusing for Evidence-Grounded Understanding of Ultra-High-Resolution Remote Sensing Imagerycited by 9
- 2026SPACENUM: Revisiting Spatial Numerical Understanding in VLMscited by 1
- 2026CityToolVQA: Tool-Augmented Visual Question Answering for 3D Spatial Cognition in Urban Low-Altitude Environmentscited by 0
- 2026CityToolVQA: Tool-Augmented Visual Question Answering for 3D Spatial Cognition in Urban Low-Altitude Environments26 Sep 2026
- 2026SPACENUM: Revisiting Spatial Numerical Understanding in VLMs22 May 2026
- 2026GeoEyes: On-Demand Visual Focusing for Evidence-Grounded Understanding of Ultra-High-Resolution Remote Sensing Imagery15 Feb 2026
- 2026Zooming without Zooming: Region-to-Image Distillation for Fine-Grained Multimodal Perception12 Feb 2026
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