# SAGP: Semantic Affordance-Guided Grasp Planning via Coarse-Zone VLM Reasoning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.29374 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.29374/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Spatial and embodied reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 5 of its 27 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 31 Jul 2026.

## Placed in

- LLM reasoning / [Spatial and embodied reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/lr/spatial-and-embodied-reasoning/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [RT-2: Vision-Language-Action Models Transfer Web Knowledge to Robotic Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.15818/) (2023)
- [Qwen-VL: A Versatile Vision-Language Model for Understanding, Localization, Text Reading, and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.12966/) (2023)
- [Open3D: A Modern Library for 3D Data Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.09847/) (2018)
- [GPT-4V(ision) for Robotics: Multimodal Task Planning from Human Demonstration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.12015/) (2023)
- [Lan-grasp: Using Large Language Models for Semantic Object Grasping and Placement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.05239/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Geometry-based grasp planners ensure physically valid grasps but ignore functional semantics, often generating grasps that are antipodal and collision-free yet practically inappropriate, for example, gripping a mug by its rim, a knife by the blade, or a bottle near its cap. These inconsistencies cause the downstream task to fail even when traditional grasp metrics are met. Existing vision-language model (VLM) approaches either depend on fine-grained, category-specific part segmentation or attempt to directly infer grasp poses, with the latter prone to spatial hallucinations. As a result, no practical, training-free framework has yet been proposed that robustly links high-level semantic reasoning to geometric grasp planning. We introduce Semantic Affordance-Guided Grasp Planning (SAGP), a training-free pipeline built on a coarse-zone abstraction layer. The method first partitions the object point cloud into spatial regions (top, middle, bottom, lateral sides, and protrusions) by applying PCA-based alignment followed by distance-driven DBSCAN clustering, entirely bypassing learned segmentation. A pre-trained VLM then assesses the grasp quality of each region through a structured zero-shot query, and the resulting zone-wise scores are fused with geometric, reachability, and task-alignment signals to re-rank antipodal grasp candidates. Experiments on YCB objects in PyBullet with a Franka Panda robot show that SAGP preserves the high success rate of geometry-only planning while substantially improving the functional appropriateness of selected grasps, particularly on asymmetric, handle-bearing objects where geometry alone is uninformative. The introduced coarse-zone abstraction offers an effective, training-free bridge between VLM-based reasoning and geometric grasp planning, without the need for fine-grained part segmentation.