PaddleOCR-VL

PaddleOCR-VL#

1 Introduction#

PaddleOCR-VL is a SOTA and resource-efficient model tailored for document parsing. Its core component is PaddleOCR-VL-0.9B, a compact yet powerful vision-language model (VLM) that integrates a NaViT-style dynamic resolution visual encoder with the ERNIE-4.5-0.3B language model to enable accurate element recognition.

This document provides a detailed workflow for the complete deployment and verification of the model, including supported features, environment preparation, single-node deployment, and functional verification. It is designed to help users quickly complete model deployment and verification.

This document is validated and written based on vLLM-Ascend v0.21.0rc1. The current model (PaddleOCR-VL) is supported in this version. It is recommended to use this version or another updated official version for deployment.

2 Supported Features#

Refer to supported features to get the model’s supported feature matrix.

Refer to feature guide to get the feature’s configuration.

3 Prerequisites#

3.1 Model Weight#

PaddleOCR-VL-0.9B: PaddleOCR-VL-0.9B

It is recommended to download the model weights to the cache directory and set VLLM_USE_MODELSCOPE=True to load the model automatically. If you have downloaded the weights to a local directory, update the MODEL_PATH variable in the deployment script accordingly.

4 Installation#

4.1 Docker Image Installation#

You can use our official docker image to run PaddleOCR-VL directly.

Select an image based on your machine type and start the docker image on your node, refer to using docker.

A2 series

export IMAGE=quay.io/ascend/vllm-ascend:|vllm_ascend_version|
docker run --rm \
    --name vllm-ascend \
    --shm-size=1g \
    --net=host \
    --device /dev/davinci0 \
    --device /dev/davinci_manager \
    --device /dev/devmm_svm \
    --device /dev/hisi_hdc \
    -v /usr/local/dcmi:/usr/local/dcmi \
    -v /usr/local/Ascend/driver/tools/hccn_tool:/usr/local/Ascend/driver/tools/hccn_tool \
    -v /usr/local/bin/npu-smi:/usr/local/bin/npu-smi \
    -v /usr/local/Ascend/driver/lib64/:/usr/local/Ascend/driver/lib64/ \
    -v /usr/local/Ascend/driver/version.info:/usr/local/Ascend/driver/version.info \
    -v /etc/ascend_install.info:/etc/ascend_install.info \
    -v /root/.cache:/root/.cache \
    -it $IMAGE bash

Atlas 300 inference products

export IMAGE=quay.io/ascend/vllm-ascend:|vllm_ascend_version|-310p
docker run --rm \
    --name vllm-ascend \
    --shm-size=1g \
    --net=host \
    --device /dev/davinci0 \
    --device /dev/davinci_manager \
    --device /dev/devmm_svm \
    --device /dev/hisi_hdc \
    -v /usr/local/dcmi:/usr/local/dcmi \
    -v /usr/local/Ascend/driver/tools/hccn_tool:/usr/local/Ascend/driver/tools/hccn_tool \
    -v /usr/local/bin/npu-smi:/usr/local/bin/npu-smi \
    -v /usr/local/Ascend/driver/lib64/:/usr/local/Ascend/driver/lib64/ \
    -v /usr/local/Ascend/driver/version.info:/usr/local/Ascend/driver/version.info \
    -v /etc/ascend_install.info:/etc/ascend_install.info \
    -v /root/.cache:/root/.cache \
    -it $IMAGE bash

After a successful docker run, you can verify the running container service by executing the docker ps command.

4.2 Source Code Installation#

If you don’t want to use the docker image as above, you can also build all from source:

Install vllm-ascend from source, refer to installation.

Note

If you are using Atlas 300 inference products, you may need to uninstall triton-ascend to avoid dependency conflicts.

5 Online Service Deployment#

5.1 Single-Node Online Deployment#

PaddleOCR-VL supports single-node single-card deployment on the A2 series and Atlas 300 inference products platform. Single-node deployment completes both Prefill and Decode within the same node.

Follow these steps to start the inference service:

Prepare model weights: Ensure the model weights are accessible. With VLLM_USE_MODELSCOPE=True, the model will be loaded automatically from ModelScope.
Set the MODEL_PATH environment variable to point to your model directory.
Create and execute the deployment script (save as deploy.sh).

Startup Command:

A2 series

#!/bin/sh
export VLLM_USE_MODELSCOPE=True
export MODEL_PATH="PaddlePaddle/PaddleOCR-VL"
export TASK_QUEUE_ENABLE=1
export CPU_AFFINITY_CONF=1
export PYTORCH_NPU_ALLOC_CONF="expandable_segments:True"

vllm serve ${MODEL_PATH} \
          --max-num-batched-tokens 16384 \
          --served-model-name PaddleOCR-VL-0.9B \
          --trust-remote-code \
          --no-enable-prefix-caching \
          --mm-processor-cache-gb 0 \
          --compilation-config '{"cudagraph_mode":"FULL_DECODE_ONLY"}' \
          --additional_config '{"enable_cpu_binding":true}' \
          --port 8000

Atlas 300 inference products

#!/bin/sh
export VLLM_USE_MODELSCOPE=True
export MODEL_PATH="PaddlePaddle/PaddleOCR-VL"
export TASK_QUEUE_ENABLE=1
export PYTORCH_NPU_ALLOC_CONF="expandable_segments:True"

vllm serve ${MODEL_PATH} \
          --max_model_len 16384 \
          --served-model-name PaddleOCR-VL-0.9B \
          --trust-remote-code \
          --no-enable-prefix-caching \
          --mm-processor-cache-gb 0 \
          --dtype float16 \
          --compilation-config '{"cudagraph_mode":"FULL_DECODE_ONLY"}' \
          --additional_config '{"ascend_compilation_config": {"fuse_norm_quant": false}, "enable_cpu_binding":true}' \
          --port 8000

Note

On Atlas 300 inference products:

Only float16 dtype is supported.
The --max_model_len option is added to prevent errors when generating the attention operator mask.
Graph compilation (--compilation-config) requires CANN version >= 9.0.0. If your CANN version is lower, please revert to eager mode by replacing the --compilation-config argument with --enforce-eager.
The fuse_norm_quant option in --additional_config is disabled (false) because it is not supported by the graph compilation on this hardware. Keep this setting unchanged.

Key Parameter Descriptions:

--max-num-batched-tokens specifies the maximum number of tokens batched in a single forward pass. Adjust this parameter for throughput optimization.
--max_model_len specifies the maximum context length — that is, the sum of input and output tokens for a single request.
--no-enable-prefix-caching indicates that prefix caching is disabled. To enable it, remove this option.
--mm-processor-cache-gb sets the size of the multimodal processor cache (in GB). A value of 0 disables caching.
--dtype float16 specifies the model dtype. On Atlas 300 inference products, only float16 is supported.
--compilation-config '{"cudagraph_mode":"FULL_DECODE_ONLY"}' enables full decode graph compilation for improved performance. On Atlas 300 inference products, fuse_norm_quant in graph compilation is disabled by default in --additional_config.
--additional_config '{"enable_cpu_binding":true}' enables CPU binding to improve performance.

Common Issues Tip: If you encounter startup issues, please refer to the Public FAQ for troubleshooting.

5.2 Multi-Node PD Separation Deployment#

Not supported yet.

5.3 Special Deployment Modes#

5.3.1 Offline Inference with vLLM and PP-DocLayoutV2#

In the above example, we demonstrated how to use vLLM to infer the PaddleOCR-VL-0.9B model. Typically, we also need to integrate the PP-DocLayoutV2 model to fully unleash the capabilities of the PaddleOCR-VL model, making it more consistent with the examples provided by the official PaddlePaddle documentation.

Note

Use separate virtual environments for VLLM and PP-DocLayoutV2 to prevent dependency conflicts.

A2 series

The A2 series device supports inference using the PaddlePaddle framework.

Pull the PaddlePaddle-compatible CANN image

docker pull ccr-2vdh3abv-pub.cnc.bj.baidubce.com/device/paddle-npu:cann800-ubuntu20-npu-910b-base-aarch64-gcc84

Start the container using the following command:

docker run -it --name paddle-npu-dev -v $(pwd):/work \
    --privileged --network=host --shm-size=128G -w=/work \
    -v /usr/local/Ascend/driver:/usr/local/Ascend/driver \
    -v /usr/local/bin/npu-smi:/usr/local/bin/npu-smi \
    -v /usr/local/dcmi:/usr/local/dcmi \
    -e ASCEND_RT_VISIBLE_DEVICES="0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7" \
    ccr-2vdh3abv-pub.cnc.bj.baidubce.com/device/paddle-npu:cann800-ubuntu20-npu-910b-base-$(uname -m)-gcc84 /bin/bash

Install PaddlePaddle and PaddleOCR

python -m pip install paddlepaddle==3.2.0
wget https://paddle-whl.bj.bcebos.com/stable/npu/paddle-custom-npu/paddle_custom_npu-3.2.0-cp310-cp310-linux_aarch64.whl
pip  install  paddle_custom_npu-3.2.0-cp310-cp310-linux_aarch64.whl
python -m pip install -U "paddleocr[doc-parser]"
pip install safetensors

Note

The OpenCV component may be missing:

apt-get update
apt-get install -y libgl1 libglib2.0-0

CANN-8.0.0 does not support some versions of NumPy and OpenCV. It is recommended to install the specified versions.

python -m pip install numpy==1.26.4
python -m pip install opencv-python==3.4.18.65

Atlas 300 inference products

The Atlas 300 inference products support only the OM model inference. For details about the process, see the guide provided in ModelZoo.

5.3.2 Using vLLM as the backend, combined with PP-DocLayoutV2 for offline inference#

from paddleocr import PaddleOCRVL

doclayout_model_path = "/path/to/your/PP-DocLayoutV2/"

pipeline = PaddleOCRVL(vl_rec_backend="vllm-server", 
                       vl_rec_server_url="http://localhost:8000/v1", 
                       layout_detection_model_name="PP-DocLayoutV2",  
                       layout_detection_model_dir=doclayout_model_path,
                       device="npu")

output = pipeline.predict("https://paddle-model-ecology.bj.bcebos.com/paddlex/imgs/demo_image/paddleocr_vl_demo.png")

for i, res in enumerate(output):
    res.save_to_json(save_path=f"output_{i}.json")
    res.save_to_markdown(save_path=f"output_{i}.md")

6 Functional Verification#

If your service starts successfully, you can see the info shown below:

INFO:     Started server process [87471]
INFO:     Waiting for application startup.
INFO:     Application startup complete.

Once your server is started, you can use the OpenAI API client to make queries.

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    api_key="EMPTY",
    base_url="http://localhost:8000/v1",
    timeout=3600
)

# Task-specific base prompts
TASKS = {
    "ocr": "OCR:",
    "table": "Table Recognition:",
    "formula": "Formula Recognition:",
    "chart": "Chart Recognition:",
}

messages = [
    {
        "role": "user",
        "content": [
            {
                "type": "image_url",
                "image_url": {
                    "url": "https://ofasys-multimodal-wlcb-3-toshanghai.oss-accelerate.aliyuncs.com/wpf272043/keepme/image/receipt.png"
                }
            },
            {
                "type": "text",
                "text": TASKS["ocr"]
            }
        ]
    }
]

response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="PaddleOCR-VL-0.9B",
    messages=messages,
    temperature=0.0,
)
print(f"Generated text: {response.choices[0].message.content}")

Expected Result:

If you query the server successfully, you can see the info shown below (client):

Generated text: CINNAMON SUGAR
1 x 17,000
17,000
SUB TOTAL
17,000
GRAND TOTAL
17,000
CASH IDR
20,000
CHANGE DUE
3,000

7 Accuracy Evaluation#

For the accuracy evaluation of PaddleOCR-VL, please refer to the official ModelZoo for the evaluation process and results.

8 Performance Evaluation#

For the performance evaluation of PaddleOCR-VL, please refer to the official ModelZoo for the benchmark methodology and results.

9 Performance Tuning#

9.1 Recommended Configurations#

Note: The following configurations are validated in specific test environments and are for reference only. The optimal configuration depends on factors such as maximum input/output length, precision requirements, and actual hardware specifications. It is recommended to refer to Section 9.2 for tuning based on actual conditions.

PaddleOCR-VL is a lightweight model that runs on a single NPU. The key tuning parameters differ between hardware platforms.

Table 1: Scenario Overview#

Scenario	Hardware	*Total NPUs	Weight Version	Key Considerations
High Throughput	A2 series	1	PaddleOCR-VL-0.9B	-
High Throughput	Atlas 300 inference products	1	PaddleOCR-VL-0.9B	Graph compilation requires CANN >= 9.0.0

*Total NPUs indicates the total number of NPUs used across all nodes.

Table 2: Detailed Node Configuration#

Scenario	Configuration	NPUs	TP	DP	Max Model Len	Max Num Batched Tokens	Graph Compilation	dtype
High Throughput	A2 series / Single Machine	1	—	—	—	16384	FULL_DECODE_ONLY	bfloat16 (default)
High Throughput	Atlas 300 inference products / Single Machine	1	—	—	16384	—	FULL_DECODE_ONLY; otherwise enforce-eager	float16

For complete startup commands and parameter descriptions, please refer to the deployment examples in Section 5.1.

9.2 Tuning Guidelines#

9.2.1 General Tuning Reference#

For performance tuning, please refer to the Public Performance Tuning Documentation for general tuning methods, including OS optimization (jemalloc, tcmalloc), torch_npu optimization (memory and scheduling), and CANN optimization.

Please refer to the Feature Guide for detailed feature descriptions.

10 FAQ#

For common environment, installation, and general parameter issues, please refer to the Public FAQ; this chapter only covers model-specific issues.

Q: What are the deployment requirements for Atlas 300 inference products?

A: On Atlas 300 inference products, only float16 dtype is supported. Graph compilation (--compilation-config) requires CANN version >= 9.0.0; if your CANN version is lower, use --enforce-eager instead.
Q: What should I do if I encounter dependency conflicts during installation on Atlas 300 inference products?

A: You may need to uninstall triton-ascend to avoid dependency conflicts. See Section 4.2 for details.

PaddleOCR-VL

Contents

PaddleOCR-VL#

1 Introduction#

2 Supported Features#

3 Prerequisites#

3.1 Model Weight#

4 Installation#

4.1 Docker Image Installation#

4.2 Source Code Installation#

5 Online Service Deployment#

5.1 Single-Node Online Deployment#

5.2 Multi-Node PD Separation Deployment#

5.3 Special Deployment Modes#

5.3.1 Offline Inference with vLLM and PP-DocLayoutV2#

5.3.2 Using vLLM as the backend, combined with PP-DocLayoutV2 for offline inference#

6 Functional Verification#

7 Accuracy Evaluation#

8 Performance Evaluation#

9 Performance Tuning#

9.1 Recommended Configurations#

Table 1: Scenario Overview#

Table 2: Detailed Node Configuration#

9.2 Tuning Guidelines#

9.2.1 General Tuning Reference#

10 FAQ#