Daily Papers

Modern monocular 3D reconstruction methods and vision-language models (VLMs) demonstrate impressive results on standard benchmarks, yet recent works cast doubt on their true understanding of geometric properties. We introduce GOQ, a comprehensive benchmark specifically designed to evaluate the geometric reasoning capabilities of vision and vision-language foundation models. GIQ comprises synthetic and real-world images and corresponding 3D meshes of diverse polyhedra covering varying levels of complexity and symmetry, from Platonic, Archimedean, Johnson, and Catalan solids to stellations and compound shapes. Through systematic experiments involving monocular 3D reconstruction, 3D symmetry detection, mental rotation tests, and zero-shot shape classification tasks, we reveal significant shortcomings in current models. State-of-the-art reconstruction algorithms trained on extensive 3D datasets struggle to reconstruct even basic geometric Platonic solids accurately. Next, although foundation models may be shown via linear and non-linear probing to capture specific 3D symmetry elements, they falter significantly in tasks requiring detailed geometric differentiation, such as mental rotation. Moreover, advanced vision-language assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claud exhibit remarkably low accuracy in interpreting basic shape properties such as face geometry, convexity, and compound structures of complex polyhedra. GIQ is publicly available at toomanymatts.github.io/giq-benchmark/, providing a structured platform to benchmark critical gaps in geometric intelligence and facilitate future progress in robust, geometry-aware representation learning.

Visual recognition of materials and their states is essential for understanding most aspects of the world, from determining whether food is cooked, metal is rusted, or a chemical reaction has occurred. However, current image recognition methods are limited to specific classes and properties and can't handle the vast number of material states in the world. To address this, we present MatSim: the first dataset and benchmark for computer vision-based recognition of similarities and transitions between materials and textures, focusing on identifying any material under any conditions using one or a few examples. The dataset contains synthetic and natural images. The synthetic images were rendered using giant collections of textures, objects, and environments generated by computer graphics artists. We use mixtures and gradual transitions between materials to allow the system to learn cases with smooth transitions between states (like gradually cooked food). We also render images with materials inside transparent containers to support beverage and chemistry lab use cases. We use this dataset to train a siamese net that identifies the same material in different objects, mixtures, and environments. The descriptor generated by this net can be used to identify the states of materials and their subclasses using a single image. We also present the first few-shot material recognition benchmark with images from a wide range of fields, including the state of foods and drinks, types of grounds, and many other use cases. We show that a net trained on the MatSim synthetic dataset outperforms state-of-the-art models like Clip on the benchmark and also achieves good results on other unsupervised material classification tasks.