SEACrowd/sea-vl_crawling

SEA-VL: A Multicultural Vision-Language Dataset for Southeast Asia

Paper: Crowdsource, Crawl, or Generate? Creating SEA-VL, A Multicultural Vision-Language Dataset for Southeast Asia

Dataset: SEA-VL Collection on HuggingFace

Code: SEA-VL Experiment | SEA-VL Image Collection

What is SEA-VL?

Following the success of our SEACrowd project, we’re excited to announce SEA-VL, a new open-source initiative to create high-quality vision-language datasets specifically for Southeast Asian (SEA) languages! We’re calling on contributors to help us build a SEA-specific vision-language model.

SEA-VL is a big initiative, so we have decided to split it into two phases. In Phase 1 of SEA-VL, we’re looking for self-taken, culturally-relevant images with descriptions about the shared image. This will be cleaned and compiled into a comprehensive open-access SEA-relevant image dataset. To further extend the size of the culturally-relevant images, we also conduct SEA-relevant image dataset collection by developing a robust pipeline for crawling, filtering, and deduplication. This dataset will serve as the foundation for Phase 2, where we’ll develop instruction-tuning VL datasets and build a SEA-specific vision language model (VLM) using the constructed dataset.

The Phase 1 of SEA-VL has been concluded in early 2025. From this initiative, we release SEA-VL collection which covers SEA-VL Crowdsourcing Dataset (8k samples) and SEA-VL Crawling Dataset (1.2M samples).

If you are interested in joining our initiative, please consider joining our Discord Server and join our regular town hall meeting (More info in Discord)!

Citing SEA-VL

@misc{cahyawijaya2025seavl,
      title={Crowdsource, Crawl, or Generate? Creating SEA-VL, a Multicultural Vision-Language Dataset for Southeast Asia}, 
      author={Samuel Cahyawijaya and Holy Lovenia and Joel Ruben Antony Moniz and Tack Hwa Wong and Mohammad Rifqi Farhansyah and Thant Thiri Maung and Frederikus Hudi and David Anugraha and Muhammad Ravi Shulthan Habibi and Muhammad Reza Qorib and Amit Agarwal and Joseph Marvin Imperial and Hitesh Laxmichand Patel and Vicky Feliren and Bahrul Ilmi Nasution and Manuel Antonio Rufino and Genta Indra Winata and Rian Adam Rajagede and Carlos Rafael Catalan and Mohamed Fazli Imam and Priyaranjan Pattnayak and Salsabila Zahirah Pranida and Kevin Pratama and Yeshil Bangera and Adisai Na-Thalang and Patricia Nicole Monderin and Yueqi Song and Christian Simon and Lynnette Hui Xian Ng and Richardy Lobo' Sapan and Taki Hasan Rafi and Bin Wang and Supryadi and Kanyakorn Veerakanjana and Piyalitt Ittichaiwong and Matthew Theodore Roque and Karissa Vincentio and Takdanai Kreangphet and Phakphum Artkaew and Kadek Hendrawan Palgunadi and Yanzhi Yu and Rochana Prih Hastuti and William Nixon and Mithil Bangera and Adrian Xuan Wei Lim and Aye Hninn Khine and Hanif Muhammad Zhafran and Teddy Ferdinan and Audra Aurora Izzani and Ayushman Singh and Evan and Jauza Akbar Krito and Michael Anugraha and Fenal Ashokbhai Ilasariya and Haochen Li and John Amadeo Daniswara and Filbert Aurelian Tjiaranata and Eryawan Presma Yulianrifat and Can Udomcharoenchaikit and Fadil Risdian Ansori and Mahardika Krisna Ihsani and Giang Nguyen and Anab Maulana Barik and Dan John Velasco and Rifo Ahmad Genadi and Saptarshi Saha and Chengwei Wei and Isaiah Flores and Kenneth Ko Han Chen and Anjela Gail Santos and Wan Shen Lim and Kaung Si Phyo and Tim Santos and Meisyarah Dwiastuti and Jiayun Luo and Jan Christian Blaise Cruz and Ming Shan Hee and Ikhlasul Akmal Hanif and M. Alif Al Hakim and Muhammad Rizky Sya'ban and Kun Kerdthaisong and Lester James V. Miranda and Fajri Koto and Tirana Noor Fatyanosa and Alham Fikri Aji and Jostin Jerico Rosal and Jun Kevin and Robert Wijaya and Onno P. Kampman and Ruochen Zhang and Börje F. Karlsson and Peerat Limkonchotiwat},
      year={2025},
      eprint={2503.07920},
      archivePrefix={arXiv},
      primaryClass={cs.CV}
}