mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

DynThinker: Unifying Static 3D and Dynamic 4D Spatial Reasoning

arXiv 2610.20598 ↗First posted 14 Oct 2026cs.CVcited by 0

On the map: LLM reasoning → Spatial and embodied reasoning

Abstract (arXiv)

Achieving general spatial intelligence requires a unified understanding of both static 3D and dynamic 4D. However, we find that existing models struggle to excel at both: 3D post-training can weaken dynamic understanding, while 4D-specialized models often lack strong static 3D reasoning. Our analysis reveals that this spatial--dynamic interference is highly non-uniform across parameter groups, with the balance between static and dynamic capabilities particularly sensitive to changes in late-layer MLPs. To address this interference, we propose DynThinker, a unified framework for jointly strengthening static and dynamic spatial reasoning. Decoupled Exponential Moving Average (D-EMA) applies configurable group-wise averaging to constrain drift in interference-sensitive pretrained parameters while preserving flexibility for capability enhancement. Spatial-Dynamic Fusion (SDF) complements D-EMA by selectively integrating spatial and temporal priors from a dynamic geometry encoder into intermediate VLM representations under semantic guidance. Across ten metrics spanning nine static 3D and dynamic 4D benchmarks, DynThinker achieves the highest average score among all evaluated models. Notably, DynThinker achieves 56.0 on ReVSI, 67.2 on DSR-Bench, and 51.2 and 40.1 under the sample-wise and group-wise evaluation protocols of DSI-Bench, respectively, setting new state-of-the-art results among the compared open-source models across all four evaluations within a unified model.

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 54 of its 62 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 14 Oct 2026.

Builds on

54 of 62 references.

Closest ancestors · 14

Same direction, newest first

  1. 20264DThinker: Thinking with 4D Imagery for Dynamic Spatial Understanding7 May
  2. 2026ReVSI: Rebuilding Visual Spatial Intelligence Evaluation for Accurate Assessment of VLM 3D Reasoning27 Apr
  3. 2026Make Geometry Matter for Spatial Reasoning27 Mar
  4. 2026MLLM-4D: Towards Visual-based Spatial-Temporal Intelligence28 Feb
  5. 2026Thinking with Geometry: Active Geometry Integration for Spatial Reasoning5 Feb
  6. 2025Learning to Reason in 4D: Dynamic Spatial Understanding for Vision Language Models23 Dec
  7. 2025SpatialLadder: Progressive Training for Spatial Reasoning in Vision-Language Models9 Oct
  8. 2025Actions as Language: Fine-Tuning VLMs into VLAs Without Catastrophic Forgetting26 Sep
  9. 2025VLM4D: Towards Spatiotemporal Awareness in Vision Language Models4 Aug
  10. 2025MMSI-Bench: A Benchmark for Multi-Image Spatial Intelligence29 May
  11. 2025ViewSpatial-Bench: Evaluating Multi-perspective Spatial Localization in Vision-Language Models27 May
  12. 2025Fine-Tuning Vision-Language-Action Models: Optimizing Speed and Success27 Feb
2 more
  1. 2024Thinking in Space: How Multimodal Large Language Models See, Remember, and Recall Spaces18 Dec
  2. 2024SpatialVLM: Endowing Vision-Language Models with Spatial Reasoning Capabilities22 Jan

Other references · 40

  1. 2025Qwen2.5-VL Technical Reportcited by 5,587
  2. 2024GPT-4o System Cardcited by 4,588
  3. 2025Gemini 2.5: Pushing the Frontier with Advanced Reasoning, Multimodality, Long Context, and Next Generation Agentic Capabilitiescited by 3,796
  4. 2024Gemini 1.5: Unlocking multimodal understanding across millions of tokens of contextcited by 3,224
  5. 2025Qwen3-VL Technical Reportcited by 2,793
  6. 2024LLaVA-OneVision: Easy Visual Task Transfercited by 2,719
  7. 2024π0: A Vision-Language-Action Flow Model for General Robot Controlcited by 2,407
  8. 2025InternVL3: Exploring Advanced Training and Test-Time Recipes for Open-Source Multimodal Modelscited by 1,834
  9. 2025VGGT: Visual Geometry Grounded Transformercited by 1,539
  10. 2025InternVL3.5: Advancing Open-Source Multimodal Models in Versatility, Reasoning, and Efficiencycited by 1,510
  11. 2023LIBERO: Benchmarking Knowledge Transfer for Lifelong Robot Learningcited by 1,410
  12. 2025GR00T N1: An Open Foundation Model for Generalist Humanoid Robotscited by 1,225
28 more
  1. 2018Averaging Weights Leads to Wider Optima and Better Generalizationcited by 1,209
  2. 2024How Far Are We to GPT-4V? Closing the Gap to Commercial Multimodal Models with Open-Source Suitescited by 1,050
  3. 2025Emerging Properties in Unified Multimodal Pretrainingcited by 897
  4. 2024Cambrian-1: A Fully Open, Vision-Centric Exploration of Multimodal LLMscited by 838
  5. 2021Robust fine-tuning of zero-shot modelscited by 797
  6. 2025FAST: Efficient Action Tokenization for Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 665
  7. 2025π3: Permutation-Equivariant Visual Geometry Learningcited by 319
  8. 2025Spatial-MLLM: Boosting MLLM Capabilities in Visual-based Spatial Intelligencecited by 217
  9. 2025VLM-3R: Vision-Language Models Augmented with Instruction-Aligned 3D Reconstructioncited by 166
  10. 2023Understanding Catastrophic Forgetting in Language Models via Implicit Inferencecited by 144
  11. 2025From Flatland to Space: Teaching Vision-Language Models to Perceive and Reason in 3Dcited by 138
  12. 2025Spatial Forcing: Implicit Spatial Representation Alignment for Vision-language-action Modelcited by 134
  13. 2025Cambrian-S: Towards Spatial Supersensing in Videocited by 134
  14. 2025Learning from Videos for 3D World: Enhancing MLLMs with 3D Vision Geometry Priorscited by 120
  15. 2026StarVLA: A Lego-like Codebase for Vision-Language-Action Model Developingcited by 112
  16. 2025Visual Spatial Tuningcited by 89
  17. 2025Scaling Spatial Intelligence with Multimodal Foundation Modelscited by 82
  18. 2025STI-Bench: Are MLLMs Ready for Precise Spatial-Temporal World Understanding?cited by 79
  19. 2024Exponential Moving Average of Weights in Deep Learning: Dynamics and Benefitscited by 71
  20. 2025Evo-0: Vision-Language-Action Model with Implicit Spatial Understandingcited by 58
  21. 2026V-DPM: 4D Video Reconstruction with Dynamic Point Mapscited by 34
  22. 2025SITE: towards Spatial Intelligence Thorough Evaluationcited by 29
  23. 2023How to Scale Your EMAcited by 24
  24. 2025DSI-Bench: A Benchmark for Dynamic Spatial Intelligencecited by 23
  25. 2024PhysGame: Uncovering Physical Commonsense Violations in Gameplay Videoscited by 22
  26. 2026VGGT-Det: Mining VGGT Internal Priors for Sensor-Geometry-Free Multi-View Indoor 3D Object Detectioncited by 9
  27. 2026Feed-Forward 3D Scene Modeling: A Problem-Driven Perspectivecited by 6
  28. 2026Cambrian-P: Pose-Grounded Video Understandingcited by 5

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  3. 2026Disentangling 3D Modeling from Spatial Reasoning
  4. 2025Think with 3D: Geometric Imagination Grounded Spatial Reasoning from Limited Views
  5. 2025Bridging the Dynamic Perception Gap: Training-Free Draft Chain-of-Thought for Dynamic Multimodal Spatial Reasoning
  6. 2025Spatial4D-Bench: A Versatile 4D Spatial Intelligence Benchmark
  7. 2026SpatialEvo: Self-Evolving Spatial Intelligence via Deterministic Geometric Environments
  8. 2025Reasoning in Space via Grounding in the World