mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Everything in Its Place: Benchmarking Spatial Intelligence of Text-to-Image Models

arXiv 2601.20354 ↗First posted 28 Jan 2026cs.CVcited by 16

Not on the map. Why?

Abstract (arXiv)

Text-to-image (T2I) models have achieved remarkable success in generating high-fidelity images, but they often fail in handling complex spatial relationships, e.g., spatial perception, reasoning, or interaction. These critical aspects are largely overlooked by current benchmarks due to their short or information-sparse prompt design. In this paper, we introduce SpatialGenEval, a new benchmark designed to systematically evaluate the spatial intelligence of T2I models, covering two key aspects: (1) SpatialGenEval involves 1,230 long, information-dense prompts across 25 real-world scenes. Each prompt integrates 10 spatial sub-domains and corresponding 10 multi-choice question-answer pairs, ranging from object position and layout to occlusion and causality. Our extensive evaluation of 21 state-of-the-art models reveals that higher-order spatial reasoning remains a primary bottleneck. (2) To demonstrate that the utility of our information-dense design goes beyond simple evaluation, we also construct the SpatialT2I dataset. It contains 15,400 text-image pairs with rewritten prompts to ensure image consistency while preserving information density. Fine-tuned results on current foundation models (i.e., Stable Diffusion-XL, Uniworld-V1, OmniGen2) yield consistent performance gains (+4.2%, +5.7%, +4.4%) and more realistic effects in spatial relations, highlighting a data-centric paradigm to achieve spatial intelligence in T2I models.

Key facts. Cited by 16 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 55 of its 65 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 28 Jan 2026.

Builds on

55 of 65 references.

References · 55

  1. 2021Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervisioncited by 33,744
  2. 2021High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 18,863
  3. 2019Sentence-BERT: Sentence Embeddings using Siamese BERT-Networkscited by 9,170
  4. 2022Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformerscited by 6,054
  5. 2023Efficient Memory Management for Large Language Model Serving with PagedAttentioncited by 5,944
  6. 2022Self-Consistency Improves Chain of Thought Reasoning in Language Modelscited by 5,708
  7. 2022Generative Adversarial Networkscited by 5,627
  8. 2025Qwen2.5-VL Technical Reportcited by 5,587
  9. 2024GPT-4o System Cardcited by 4,588
  10. 2021Zero-Shot Text-to-Image Generationcited by 4,288
  11. 2025Gemini 2.5: Pushing the Frontier with Advanced Reasoning, Multimodality, Long Context, and Next Generation Agentic Capabilitiescited by 3,796
  12. 2024Gemini 1.5: Unlocking multimodal understanding across millions of tokens of contextcited by 3,224
38 more
  1. 2023MM-Vet: Evaluating Large Multimodal Models for Integrated Capabilitiescited by 1,239
  2. 2025Qwen-Image Technical Reportcited by 1,044
  3. 2023GenEval: An Object-Focused Framework for Evaluating Text-to-Image Alignmentcited by 972
  4. 2024Are We on the Right Way for Evaluating Large Vision-Language Models?cited by 914
  5. 2025Emerging Properties in Unified Multimodal Pretrainingcited by 897
  6. 2023PixArt-α: Fast Training of Diffusion Transformer for Photorealistic Text-to-Image Synthesiscited by 864
  7. 2025Janus-Pro: Unified Multimodal Understanding and Generation with Data and Model Scalingcited by 812
  8. 2024Show-o: One Single Transformer to Unify Multimodal Understanding and Generationcited by 752
  9. 2024SpatialVLM: Endowing Vision-Language Models with Spatial Reasoning Capabilitiescited by 706
  10. 2025Flow-GRPO: Training Flow Matching Models via Online RLcited by 661
  11. 2024Thinking in Space: How Multimodal Large Language Models See, Remember, and Recall Spacescited by 611
  12. 2024ELLA: Equip Diffusion Models with LLM for Enhanced Semantic Alignmentcited by 475
  13. 2024PixArt-Sigma: Weak-to-Strong Training of Diffusion Transformer for 4K Text-to-Image Generationcited by 329
  14. 2024Infinity: Scaling Bitwise AutoRegressive Modeling for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 304
  15. 2022Visual Spatial Reasoningcited by 293
  16. 2023Text-to-image Diffusion Models in Generative AI: A Surveycited by 265
  17. 2021A Survey of Embodied AI: From Simulators to Research Taskscited by 261
  18. 2024Playground v2.5: Three Insights towards Enhancing Aesthetic Quality in Text-to-Image Generationcited by 256
  19. 2025OmniGen2: Towards Instruction-Aligned Multimodal Generationcited by 253
  20. 2025WISE: A World Knowledge-Informed Semantic Evaluation for Text-to-Image Generationcited by 204
  21. 2025MMSI-Bench: A Benchmark for Multi-Image Spatial Intelligencecited by 183
  22. 2025SANA 1.5: Efficient Scaling of Training-Time and Inference-Time Compute in Linear Diffusion Transformercited by 165
  23. 2021Embodied Intelligence via Learning and Evolutioncited by 163
  24. 2023Holistic Evaluation of Text-To-Image Modelscited by 160
  25. 2024SpatialBot: Precise Spatial Understanding with Vision Language Modelscited by 152
  26. 2025GPG: A Simple and Strong Reinforcement Learning Baseline for Model Reasoningcited by 150
  27. 2025Pref-GRPO: Pairwise Preference Reward-based GRPO for Stable Text-to-Image Reinforcement Learningcited by 92
  28. 2025OneIG-Bench: Omni-dimensional Nuanced Evaluation for Image Generationcited by 87
  29. 2025TIIF-Bench: How Does Your T2I Model Follow Your Instructions?cited by 69
  30. 2024Do Vision-Language Models Represent Space and How? Evaluating Spatial Frame of Reference Under Ambiguitiescited by 59
  31. 2025NextStep-1: Toward Autoregressive Image Generation with Continuous Tokens at Scalecited by 57
  32. 2023RenAIssance: A Survey into AI Text-to-Image Generation in the Era of Large Modelcited by 47
  33. 2024Curriculum Direct Preference Optimization for Diffusion and Consistency Modelscited by 36
  34. 2024PhyBench: A Physical Commonsense Benchmark for Evaluating Text-to-Image Modelscited by 36
  35. 2025Easier Painting Than Thinking: Can Text-to-Image Models Set the Stage, but Not Direct the Play?cited by 34
  36. 2025R2I-Bench: Benchmarking Reasoning-Driven Text-to-Image Generationcited by 32
  37. 2024Getting it Right: Improving Spatial Consistency in Text-to-Image Modelscited by 30
  38. 2025USP: Unified Self-Supervised Pretraining for Image Generation and Understandingcited by 24

50 most cited of 55 All 55 (JSON)

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 16.

16 papers.

Sort:

By area:

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026Exploring Spatial Intelligence from a Generative Perspective
  2. 2025SpatialScore: Towards Comprehensive Evaluation for Spatial Intelligence
  3. 2026SpatialBench-UC: Uncertainty-Aware Evaluation of Spatial Prompt Following in Text-to-Image Generation
  4. 2025Mind the Gap: Benchmarking Spatial Reasoning in Vision-Language Models
  5. 2025Spatial Reasoning in Multimodal Large Language Models: A Survey of Tasks, Benchmarks and Methods
  6. 2024Is A Picture Worth A Thousand Words? Delving Into Spatial Reasoning for Vision Language Models
  7. 2024CoMPaSS: Enhancing Spatial Understanding in Text-to-Image Diffusion Models
  8. 2025SITE: towards Spatial Intelligence Thorough Evaluation