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arXiv · 2503.14607

Can Large Vision Language Models Read Maps Like a Human?

Shuo Xing·Zezhou Sun·Shuangyu Xie·Kaiyuan Chen·Yanjia Huang·Yuping Wang·Jiachen Li·Dezhen Song·Zhengzhong Tu
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Abstract

In this paper, we introduce MapBench-the first dataset specifically designed for human-readable, pixel-based map-based outdoor navigation, curated from complex path finding scenarios. MapBench comprises over 1600 pixel space map path finding problems from 100 diverse maps. In MapBench, LVLMs generate language-based navigation instructions given a map image and a query with beginning and end landmarks. For each map, MapBench provides Map Space Scene Graph (MSSG) as an indexing data structure to convert between natural language and evaluate LVLM-generated results. We demonstrate that MapBench significantly challenges state-of-the-art LVLMs both zero-shot prompting and a Chain-of-Thought (CoT) augmented reasoning framework that decomposes map navigation into sequential cognitive processes. Our evaluation of both open-source and closed-source LVLMs underscores the substantial difficulty posed by MapBench, revealing critical limitations in their spatial reasoning and structured decision-making capabilities. We release all the code and dataset in https://github.com/taco-group/MapBench.

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Shuo Xing, Zezhou Sun, Shuangyu Xie, Kaiyuan Chen, Yanjia Huang, Yuping Wang, Jiachen Li, Dezhen Song, Zhengzhong Tu. 2025-03-18. Can Large Vision Language Models Read Maps Like a Human?. https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.14607

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