[Submitted on 30 Sep 2026]
Title:Task-Utility IQA: Rethinking Image Quality Assessment in Embodied Tasks
View a PDF of the paper titled Task-Utility IQA: Rethinking Image Quality Assessment in Embodied Tasks, by Jirong Zha and 7 other authors
View PDF HTML (experimental)
Abstract:Image quality assessment (IQA) underpins embodied imaging pipelines by judging whether visual quality satisfies downstream tasks, yet most existing methods learn task-agnostic scores aligned with generic human ratings on static benchmarks. This objective mismatches embodied and interactive settings, where image adequacy depends on task goals, context, and action requirements that shape an agent's decisions. We argue that IQA should shift from score regression to goal-conditioned judgment defined by embodied task utility. To this end, we propose an MLLM-based embodied IQA agent framework that reasons about task requirements, grounds quality evidence, and produces decision-facing assessments. A compact VisDrone evidence study shows that conventional perceptual metrics and generic MLLM-based IQA scores are weak proxies for downstream VLM task success, while a task-conditioned utility score better predicts whether visual input supports the target task. These findings support a task-utility-oriented reframing of IQA for embodied, explainable, and decision-aware visual perception.
Subjects:
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (cs.CV); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI)
Cite as: arXiv:2610.35905 [cs.CV]
(or arXiv:2610.35905v1 [cs.CV] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2610.35905
arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)
Submission history
From: Jirong Zha [view email] [v1] Wed, 30 Sep 2026 03:27:47 UTC (8,990 KB)
Full-text links:
Access Paper:
View a PDF of the paper titled Task-Utility IQA: Rethinking Image Quality Assessment in Embodied Tasks, by Jirong Zha and 7 other authors
View PDF
HTML (experimental)
TeX Source
view license
Additional Features
Audio Summary
Current browse context:
cs.CV
new | recent | 2026-10
Change to browse by:
cs cs.AI
References & Citations
SciX
Google Scholar
Semantic Scholar
Loading...
Data provided by:
Bibliographic Tools
Bibliographic and Citation Tools
Bibliographic Explorer Toggle
Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?)
Connected Papers Toggle
Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?)
Litmaps Toggle
Litmaps (What is Litmaps?)
scite.ai Toggle
scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?)
Code, Data, Media
Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article
alphaXiv Toggle
alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?)
Links to Code Toggle
CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?)
DagsHub Toggle
DagsHub (What is DagsHub?)
GotitPub Toggle
Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?)
Huggingface Toggle
Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?)
ScienceCast Toggle
ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?)
Demos
Demos
Replicate Toggle
Replicate (What is Replicate?)
Spaces Toggle
Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?)
Spaces Toggle
TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?)
Related Papers
Recommenders and Search Tools
Link to Influence Flower
Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?)
Core recommender toggle
CORE Recommender (What is CORE?)
Author
Venue
Institution
Topic
About arXivLabs
arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators
arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.
Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.
Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.
Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)