Everything in Its Place: Benchmarking Spatial Intelligence of Text-to-Image Models
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
- 2021Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervisioncited by 33,744
- 2021High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 18,863
- 2019Sentence-BERT: Sentence Embeddings using Siamese BERT-Networkscited by 9,170
- 2022Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformerscited by 6,054
- 2023Efficient Memory Management for Large Language Model Serving with PagedAttentioncited by 5,944
- 2022Self-Consistency Improves Chain of Thought Reasoning in Language Modelscited by 5,708
- 2022Generative Adversarial Networkscited by 5,627
- 2025Qwen2.5-VL Technical Reportcited by 5,587
- 2024GPT-4o System Cardcited by 4,588
- 2021Zero-Shot Text-to-Image Generationcited by 4,288
- 2025Gemini 2.5: Pushing the Frontier with Advanced Reasoning, Multimodality, Long Context, and Next Generation Agentic Capabilitiescited by 3,796
- 2024Gemini 1.5: Unlocking multimodal understanding across millions of tokens of contextcited by 3,224
38 more
- 2023MM-Vet: Evaluating Large Multimodal Models for Integrated Capabilitiescited by 1,239
- 2025Qwen-Image Technical Reportcited by 1,044
- 2023GenEval: An Object-Focused Framework for Evaluating Text-to-Image Alignmentcited by 972
- 2024Are We on the Right Way for Evaluating Large Vision-Language Models?cited by 914
- 2025Emerging Properties in Unified Multimodal Pretrainingcited by 897
- 2023PixArt-α: Fast Training of Diffusion Transformer for Photorealistic Text-to-Image Synthesiscited by 864
- 2025Janus-Pro: Unified Multimodal Understanding and Generation with Data and Model Scalingcited by 812
- 2024Show-o: One Single Transformer to Unify Multimodal Understanding and Generationcited by 752
- 2024SpatialVLM: Endowing Vision-Language Models with Spatial Reasoning Capabilitiescited by 706
- 2025Flow-GRPO: Training Flow Matching Models via Online RLcited by 661
- 2024Thinking in Space: How Multimodal Large Language Models See, Remember, and Recall Spacescited by 611
- 2024ELLA: Equip Diffusion Models with LLM for Enhanced Semantic Alignmentcited by 475
- 2024PixArt-Sigma: Weak-to-Strong Training of Diffusion Transformer for 4K Text-to-Image Generationcited by 329
- 2024Infinity: Scaling Bitwise AutoRegressive Modeling for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 304
- 2022Visual Spatial Reasoningcited by 293
- 2023Text-to-image Diffusion Models in Generative AI: A Surveycited by 265
- 2021A Survey of Embodied AI: From Simulators to Research Taskscited by 261
- 2024Playground v2.5: Three Insights towards Enhancing Aesthetic Quality in Text-to-Image Generationcited by 256
- 2025OmniGen2: Towards Instruction-Aligned Multimodal Generationcited by 253
- 2025WISE: A World Knowledge-Informed Semantic Evaluation for Text-to-Image Generationcited by 204
- 2025MMSI-Bench: A Benchmark for Multi-Image Spatial Intelligencecited by 183
- 2025SANA 1.5: Efficient Scaling of Training-Time and Inference-Time Compute in Linear Diffusion Transformercited by 165
- 2021Embodied Intelligence via Learning and Evolutioncited by 163
- 2023Holistic Evaluation of Text-To-Image Modelscited by 160
- 2024SpatialBot: Precise Spatial Understanding with Vision Language Modelscited by 152
- 2025GPG: A Simple and Strong Reinforcement Learning Baseline for Model Reasoningcited by 150
- 2025Pref-GRPO: Pairwise Preference Reward-based GRPO for Stable Text-to-Image Reinforcement Learningcited by 92
- 2025OneIG-Bench: Omni-dimensional Nuanced Evaluation for Image Generationcited by 87
- 2025TIIF-Bench: How Does Your T2I Model Follow Your Instructions?cited by 69
- 2024Do Vision-Language Models Represent Space and How? Evaluating Spatial Frame of Reference Under Ambiguitiescited by 59
- 2025NextStep-1: Toward Autoregressive Image Generation with Continuous Tokens at Scalecited by 57
- 2023RenAIssance: A Survey into AI Text-to-Image Generation in the Era of Large Modelcited by 47
- 2024Curriculum Direct Preference Optimization for Diffusion and Consistency Modelscited by 36
- 2024PhyBench: A Physical Commonsense Benchmark for Evaluating Text-to-Image Modelscited by 36
- 2025Easier Painting Than Thinking: Can Text-to-Image Models Set the Stage, but Not Direct the Play?cited by 34
- 2025R2I-Bench: Benchmarking Reasoning-Driven Text-to-Image Generationcited by 32
- 2024Getting it Right: Improving Spatial Consistency in Text-to-Image Modelscited by 30
- 2025USP: Unified Self-Supervised Pretraining for Image Generation and Understandingcited by 24
50 most cited of 55 All 55 (JSON)
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2026: 16.
16 papers.
Sort:
By area:
- 2026GEMS: Agent-Native Multimodal Generation with Memory and Skillscited by 21
- 2026Transferability Between Understanding and Generation in Unified Multimodal Modelscited by 3
- 2026Advances in GRPO for Generation Models: A Surveycited by 2
- 2026Show, Don't Tell: Evaluating Spatial Cognition in Generative Pixels Rather Than LLM Textcited by 2
- 2026SpatialGuard: Harness-Guided Verifiable Spatial Reasoning for Text-to-Image Generationcited by 2
- 2026Seeing Isn't Believing: Uncovering Blind Spots in Evaluator Vision-Language Modelscited by 1
- 2026Do Image Editing Models Understand Lighting?cited by 1
- 2026GenScale: A Benchmark for Relative Object Scale in Image Generation and Editingcited by 1
- 2026AR-MAP: Are Autoregressive Large Language Models Implicit Teachers for Diffusion Large Language Models?cited by 0
- 2026DynT2I-Eval: A Dynamic Evaluation Framework for Text-to-Image Modelscited by 0
- 2026Seeing is Believing: Aligning Prompt Rewriting with Visual Anchors for Text-to-Image Generationcited by 0
- 2026Blending Concepts: Benchmarking Visual Metaphor Generation in Text-to-Image Modelscited by 0
4 more
- 2026Beyond Visual Quality: Evaluating Physical Consistency under Ego-Motion with EgoGenEvalcited by 0
- 2026Panoptic Scene Program Diffusion Transformercited by 0
- 2026Looped Diffusion Transformercited by 0
- 2026Getting Space Right: Agentic Rewards for Image Generationcited by 0
- 2026Getting Space Right: Agentic Rewards for Image Generation10 Oct 2026
- 2026Looped Diffusion Transformer30 Sep 2026
- 2026Panoptic Scene Program Diffusion Transformer24 Sep 2026
- 2026Beyond Visual Quality: Evaluating Physical Consistency under Ego-Motion with EgoGenEval10 Sep 2026
- 2026Blending Concepts: Benchmarking Visual Metaphor Generation in Text-to-Image Models2 Sep 2026
- 2026SpatialGuard: Harness-Guided Verifiable Spatial Reasoning for Text-to-Image Generation1 Sep 2026
- 2026GenScale: A Benchmark for Relative Object Scale in Image Generation and Editing1 Sep 2026
- 2026Show, Don't Tell: Evaluating Spatial Cognition in Generative Pixels Rather Than LLM Text23 Jul 2026
- 2026Transferability Between Understanding and Generation in Unified Multimodal Models5 Jul 2026
- 2026Do Image Editing Models Understand Lighting?25 Jun 2026
- 2026Seeing is Believing: Aligning Prompt Rewriting with Visual Anchors for Text-to-Image Generation7 Jun 2026
- 2026DynT2I-Eval: A Dynamic Evaluation Framework for Text-to-Image Models7 May 2026
4 more
- 2026Seeing Isn't Believing: Uncovering Blind Spots in Evaluator Vision-Language Models23 Apr 2026
- 2026GEMS: Agent-Native Multimodal Generation with Memory and Skills30 Mar 2026
- 2026Advances in GRPO for Generation Models: A Survey21 Feb 2026
- 2026AR-MAP: Are Autoregressive Large Language Models Implicit Teachers for Diffusion Large Language Models?2 Feb 2026
- 2026Panoptic Scene Program Diffusion Transformercited by 0
- 2026Looped Diffusion Transformercited by 0
- 2026Looped Diffusion Transformer30 Sep 2026
- 2026Panoptic Scene Program Diffusion Transformer24 Sep 2026
- 2026Getting Space Right: Agentic Rewards for Image Generation10 Oct 2026
- 2026GEMS: Agent-Native Multimodal Generation with Memory and Skillscited by 21
- 2026Transferability Between Understanding and Generation in Unified Multimodal Modelscited by 3
- 2026Show, Don't Tell: Evaluating Spatial Cognition in Generative Pixels Rather Than LLM Textcited by 2
- 2026Do Image Editing Models Understand Lighting?cited by 1
- 2026GenScale: A Benchmark for Relative Object Scale in Image Generation and Editingcited by 1
- 2026AR-MAP: Are Autoregressive Large Language Models Implicit Teachers for Diffusion Large Language Models?cited by 0
- 2026DynT2I-Eval: A Dynamic Evaluation Framework for Text-to-Image Modelscited by 0
- 2026Seeing is Believing: Aligning Prompt Rewriting with Visual Anchors for Text-to-Image Generationcited by 0
- 2026Blending Concepts: Benchmarking Visual Metaphor Generation in Text-to-Image Modelscited by 0
- 2026Beyond Visual Quality: Evaluating Physical Consistency under Ego-Motion with EgoGenEvalcited by 0
- 2026Beyond Visual Quality: Evaluating Physical Consistency under Ego-Motion with EgoGenEval10 Sep 2026
- 2026Blending Concepts: Benchmarking Visual Metaphor Generation in Text-to-Image Models2 Sep 2026
- 2026GenScale: A Benchmark for Relative Object Scale in Image Generation and Editing1 Sep 2026
- 2026Show, Don't Tell: Evaluating Spatial Cognition in Generative Pixels Rather Than LLM Text23 Jul 2026
- 2026Transferability Between Understanding and Generation in Unified Multimodal Models5 Jul 2026
- 2026Do Image Editing Models Understand Lighting?25 Jun 2026
- 2026Seeing is Believing: Aligning Prompt Rewriting with Visual Anchors for Text-to-Image Generation7 Jun 2026
- 2026DynT2I-Eval: A Dynamic Evaluation Framework for Text-to-Image Models7 May 2026
- 2026GEMS: Agent-Native Multimodal Generation with Memory and Skills30 Mar 2026
- 2026AR-MAP: Are Autoregressive Large Language Models Implicit Teachers for Diffusion Large Language Models?2 Feb 2026
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2026Exploring Spatial Intelligence from a Generative Perspective
- 2025SpatialScore: Towards Comprehensive Evaluation for Spatial Intelligence
- 2026SpatialBench-UC: Uncertainty-Aware Evaluation of Spatial Prompt Following in Text-to-Image Generation
- 2025Mind the Gap: Benchmarking Spatial Reasoning in Vision-Language Models
- 2025Spatial Reasoning in Multimodal Large Language Models: A Survey of Tasks, Benchmarks and Methods
- 2024Is A Picture Worth A Thousand Words? Delving Into Spatial Reasoning for Vision Language Models
- 2024CoMPaSS: Enhancing Spatial Understanding in Text-to-Image Diffusion Models
- 2025SITE: towards Spatial Intelligence Thorough Evaluation