Evaluation of thermal comfort in urban commercial space with Vision Language Models-based agent model

Thermal comfort in urban commercial spaces plays a crucial role in influencing both business performance and public well-being. Traditional evaluation methods, which typically depend on field surveys and expert assessments, are often time-consuming and labor-intensive. This study introduces a novel proxy evaluation method based on the Vision Language Models (VLMs) to assess thermal comfort in commercial spaces. Specifically, we developed a VLMs-based agent system (ChatGPT-4o) that simulates eight distinct roles with diverse demographic backgrounds to assess the thermal comfort of Harbin Central Street’s commercial district through visual analysis. To validate the method’s effectiveness, we compared the VLMs assessment results with evaluations from 200 professional volunteers based on a 25% sample (n=143). Additionally, we conducted spatial distribution and thematic analyses to examine evaluation patterns and identify the key factors influencing thermal comfort. The findings reveal the following: First, the VLMs assessments showed a significant correlation with human expert evaluations (r=0.602, p<0.001), confirming the feasibility of the VLMs-based thermal comfort assessment method; Second, the eight role proxies demonstrated notable heterogeneity in thermal comfort evaluations, highlighting the VLMs’ ability to accurately capture perceptual differences across social groups; Finally, spatial analysis revealed that, although evaluation differences exist among roles, the eastern region generally experiences higher thermal comfort than the western and central regions, with shade and vegetation being the most commonly identified influencing factors. This study assesses the effectiveness of VLMs-based proxies in urban thermal comfort evaluation. It demonstrates their ability to capture perceptual differences across social groups while offering a more efficient alternative to traditional assessment methods. This innovative approach opens new avenues for research and provides practical pathways for rapid, comprehensive, and multi-perspective thermal comfort assessments in urban commercial spaces.