---
license: cc-by-4.0
language:
- en
pretty_name: PaintBench
task_categories:
- image-to-image
- image-text-to-image
size_categories:
- 1K<n<10K
tags:
- benchmark
- image-editing
- visual-editing
- paintbench
- evaluation
dataset_info:
- config_name: PaintBench
  features:
  - name: category
    dtype: string
  - name: task
    dtype: string
  - name: mode
    dtype: string
  - name: problem_id
    dtype: int32
  - name: instruction
    dtype: string
  - name: input_image
    dtype: image
  - name: answer_image
    dtype: image
  - name: metadata
    dtype: string
  splits:
  - name: test
    num_bytes: 17727512
    num_examples: 1050
  download_size: 16940626
  dataset_size: 17727512
- config_name: TinyGrafixBench
  features:
  - name: category
    dtype: string
  - name: task
    dtype: string
  - name: mode
    dtype: string
  - name: problem_id
    dtype: int32
  - name: instruction
    dtype: string
  - name: input_image
    dtype: image
  - name: answer_image
    dtype: image
  - name: metadata
    dtype: string
  splits:
  - name: test
    num_bytes: 51745870
    num_examples: 600
  download_size: 51552058
  dataset_size: 51745870
- config_name: ablations
  features:
  - name: category
    dtype: string
  - name: task
    dtype: string
  - name: mode
    dtype: string
  - name: problem_id
    dtype: int32
  - name: instruction
    dtype: string
  - name: input_image
    dtype: image
  - name: answer_image
    dtype: image
  - name: metadata
    dtype: string
  splits:
  - name: test
    num_bytes: 20114921
    num_examples: 1080
  download_size: 19106533
  dataset_size: 20114921
configs:
- config_name: PaintBench
  default: true
  data_files:
  - split: test
    path: PaintBench/test-*
- config_name: TinyGrafixBench
  data_files:
  - split: test
    path: TinyGrafixBench/test-*
- config_name: ablations
  data_files:
  - split: test
    path: ablations/test-*
---

# PaintBench

**A precise, deterministic visual editing benchmark.** PaintBench evaluates whether generative models can execute MS-Paint-style image editing operations with pixel-level correctness. Every problem is a `(input_image, instruction, answer_image)` triplet, generated programmatically so the answer is pixel-exact and the answer distribution is known by construction.

This dataset bundles three sibling benchmarks that share one generation and evaluation pipeline:

| Subset (config) | Rows | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| **PaintBench** (default) | 1,050 | 20 canonical tasks (35 task-modes) grouped into 4 categories — `geometric_transformation`, `structural_manipulation`, `color_change`, `symbolic_reasoning`. |
| **TinyGrafixBench** | 600 | Chart-edit mini-benchmark: 5 chart types (`bar_chart`, `heatmap`, `line_chart`, `network`, `scatter_plot`) × 4 edit subtasks per chart — a real-world analog of the primitive operations. The chart type is the `category` and the edit subtask is the `task` (mirrors the PaintBench grouping). |
| **ablations** | 1,080 | Per-axis variation studies on 4 focal PaintBench tasks (`removal_attribute`, `recolor_color_code`, `copying`, `preservation`) × 9 variants. Every row has `category="ablation"`; the focal task is the `task` and the variant (`baseline`, `horizontal`, `vertical`, `small`, `nonstandard`, `striped`, `n16`, `n36`, `n64`) is the `mode`. |

Each subset has a single `test` split — the benchmarks are intended for evaluation, not training.

## Quick start

```python
from datasets import load_dataset

ds  = load_dataset("PaintBench/PaintBench", split="test")
tgb = load_dataset("PaintBench/PaintBench", "TinyGrafixBench", split="test")
abl = load_dataset("PaintBench/PaintBench", "ablations",       split="test")

ex = ds[0]
ex["category"]      # top-level group, e.g. "color_change"
ex["task"]          # canonical task, e.g. "flood_fill"
ex["mode"]          # subtask, e.g. "background"  ("" when the task has no modes)
ex["instruction"]   # natural-language edit instruction
ex["input_image"]   # PIL.Image — the source canvas
ex["answer_image"]  # PIL.Image — pixel-exact ground truth
ex["metadata"]      # JSON string — full per-problem spec (seed, scene_shapes, params, ...)
```

Group by category / task / mode:

```python
from collections import Counter
Counter(ds["category"]).most_common()       # 4 PaintBench categories
Counter(tgb["category"]).most_common()      # 5 chart types
Counter(abl["mode"]).most_common()          # 9 ablation variants
```

## Schema

All three configs share a uniform schema:

| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| `category` | `string` | Top-level grouping. **PaintBench**: one of `geometric_transformation` / `structural_manipulation` / `color_change` / `symbolic_reasoning`. **TinyGrafixBench**: chart type (`bar_chart`, `heatmap`, `line_chart`, `network`, `scatter_plot`). **ablations**: `"ablation"`. |
| `task` | `string` | Operation within the category. **PaintBench**: canonical task (`flood_fill`, `recolor`, `translation`, ...). **TinyGrafixBench**: chart-edit subtask (`add_bar`, `sort_bars`, `mask_cells`, ...). **ablations**: focal task identifier (`removal_attribute`, `recolor_color_code`, `copying`, `preservation`). |
| `mode` | `string` | Subtask / variant within the `task`. **PaintBench**: subtask (`background`, `foreground`, `external`, ...) or `""` when the task has no modes. **TinyGrafixBench**: always `""`. **ablations**: variant (`baseline`, `horizontal`, `vertical`, `small`, `nonstandard`, `striped`, `n16`, `n36`, `n64`). The on-disk `problems.jsonl` keeps the empty slots as JSON `null`; the dataset normalizes to `""` so the column stays a non-nullable `string`. |
| `problem_id` | `int32` | Zero-indexed id within the `(category, task, mode)` cell. |
| `instruction` | `string` | Natural-language edit instruction. |
| `input_image` | `image` | Source canvas (PNG, embedded). |
| `answer_image` | `image` | Pixel-exact ground-truth output (PNG, embedded). |
| `metadata` | `string` | JSON-encoded per-problem spec — includes the random seed, scene composition, the on-disk folder name (`task_mode`), and any per-subset extras (`base_task_canonical` / `base_task_mode` for `ablations`; `params` / `scene_shapes` / colors for `PaintBench`). Useful for filtering, grouping, and exact regeneration. |

To pull structured fields out of `metadata`:

```python
import json
ex = ds[0]
meta = json.loads(ex["metadata"])
meta["seed"]                  # for deterministic regeneration
meta["task_mode"]             # on-disk folder name (= "<task>_<mode>" or "<task>")
meta.get("base_task_canonical")  # populated only for the `ablations` config
meta.get("scene_shapes")      # PaintBench scene composition
```

## Evaluation

PaintBench uses pointwise CIE76 ΔE between the model's output and `answer_image`. Per-pixel ΔE values are thresholded at {0, 2, 5, 10} and aggregated to per-problem and per-task pass rates. The reference implementation lives in the [project repo](https://github.com/PaintBench/paintbench-internal).

## Source

The benchmarks are generated programmatically — there is no human curation step. Every problem is reproducible from its `metadata.seed`. See the [project repo](https://github.com/PaintBench/paintbench-internal) for the generation pipeline and a full per-task description.

## License

Released under the [Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) license. You are free to share and adapt the dataset, including for commercial use, with attribution.

## Citation

Citation will be added upon paper publication. For now, please reference this dataset as:

```bibtex
@misc{paintbench2026,
  title  = {PaintBench: A Precise, Deterministic Visual Editing Benchmark},
  author = {PaintBench team},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/PaintBench/PaintBench}
}
```