Zhiwei Huang

Xiaohong Liu, Xiongkuo Min, Wei Sun et al. · eth-zurich

This paper reports on the NTIRE 2023 Quality Assessment of Video Enhancement Challenge, which will be held in conjunction with the New Trends in Image Restoration and Enhancement Workshop (NTIRE) at CVPR 2023. This challenge is to address a major challenge in the field of video processing, namely, video quality assessment (VQA) for enhanced videos. The challenge uses the VQA Dataset for Perceptual Video Enhancement (VDPVE), which has a total of 1211 enhanced videos, including 600 videos with color, brightness, and contrast enhancements, 310 videos with deblurring, and 301 deshaked videos. The challenge has a total of 167 registered participants. 61 participating teams submitted their prediction results during the development phase, with a total of 3168 submissions. A total of 176 submissions were submitted by 37 participating teams during the final testing phase. Finally, 19 participating teams submitted their models and fact sheets, and detailed the methods they used. Some methods have achieved better results than baseline methods, and the winning methods have demonstrated superior prediction performance.

Wen Zhang, Zhen Yao, Mingyang Chen et al.

Since the dynamic characteristics of knowledge graphs, many inductive knowledge graph representation learning (KGRL) works have been proposed in recent years, focusing on enabling prediction over new entities. NeuralKG-ind is the first library of inductive KGRL as an important update of NeuralKG library. It includes standardized processes, rich existing methods, decoupled modules, and comprehensive evaluation metrics. With NeuralKG-ind, it is easy for researchers and engineers to reproduce, redevelop, and compare inductive KGRL methods. The library, experimental methodologies, and model re-implementing results of NeuralKG-ind are all publicly released at https://github.com/zjukg/NeuralKG/tree/ind .

Zhiwei Huang, Juan Li, Long Jin et al.

As the development of academic conferences fosters global scholarly communication, researchers consistently need to obtain accurate and up-to-date information about academic conferences. Since the information is scattered, using an intelligent question-answering system to efficiently handle researchers' queries and ensure awareness of the latest advancements is necessary. Recently, Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated impressive capabilities in question answering, and have been enhanced by retrieving external knowledge to deal with outdated knowledge. However, these methods fail to work due to the lack of the latest conference knowledge. To address this challenge, we develop the ConferenceQA dataset, consisting of seven diverse academic conferences. Specifically, for each conference, we first organize academic conference data in a tree-structured format through a semi-automated method. Then we annotate question-answer pairs and classify the pairs into four different types to better distinguish their difficulty. With the constructed dataset, we further propose a novel method STAR (STructure-Aware Retrieval) to improve the question-answering abilities of LLMs, leveraging inherent structural information during the retrieval process. Experimental results on the ConferenceQA dataset show the effectiveness of our retrieval method. The dataset and code are available at https://github.com/zjukg/ConferenceQA.

Runsen Xu, Zhiwei Huang, Tai Wang et al.

3D visual grounding is crucial for robots, requiring integration of natural language and 3D scene understanding. Traditional methods depending on supervised learning with 3D point clouds are limited by scarce datasets. Recently zero-shot methods leveraging LLMs have been proposed to address the data issue. While effective, these methods only use object-centric information, limiting their ability to handle complex queries. In this work, we present VLM-Grounder, a novel framework using vision-language models (VLMs) for zero-shot 3D visual grounding based solely on 2D images. VLM-Grounder dynamically stitches image sequences, employs a grounding and feedback scheme to find the target object, and uses a multi-view ensemble projection to accurately estimate 3D bounding boxes. Experiments on ScanRefer and Nr3D datasets show VLM-Grounder outperforms previous zero-shot methods, achieving 51.6% Acc@0.25 on ScanRefer and 48.0% Acc on Nr3D, without relying on 3D geometry or object priors. Codes are available at https://github.com/OpenRobotLab/VLM-Grounder .

Zhiwei Huang, Yikang Zhang, Qijun Chen et al.

LiDAR-camera extrinsic calibration (LCEC) is crucial for data fusion in intelligent vehicles. Offline, target-based approaches have long been the preferred choice in this field. However, they often demonstrate poor adaptability to real-world environments. This is largely because extrinsic parameters may change significantly due to moderate shocks or during extended operations in environments with vibrations. In contrast, online, target-free approaches provide greater adaptability yet typically lack robustness, primarily due to the challenges in cross-modal feature matching. Therefore, in this article, we unleash the full potential of large vision models (LVMs), which are emerging as a significant trend in the fields of computer vision and robotics, especially for embodied artificial intelligence, to achieve robust and accurate online, target-free LCEC across a variety of challenging scenarios. Our main contributions are threefold: we introduce a novel framework known as MIAS-LCEC, provide an open-source versatile calibration toolbox with an interactive visualization interface, and publish three real-world datasets captured from various indoor and outdoor environments. The cornerstone of our framework and toolbox is the cross-modal mask matching (C3M) algorithm, developed based on a state-of-the-art (SoTA) LVM and capable of generating sufficient and reliable matches. Extensive experiments conducted on these real-world datasets demonstrate the robustness of our approach and its superior performance compared to SoTA methods, particularly for the solid-state LiDARs with super-wide fields of view.

Xiaoran Zhang, Yu Liu, Jinyu Liang et al.

Cross-modal Thermal Geo-localization (TG) provides a robust, all-weather solution for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-denied environments. However, profound thermal-visible modality gaps introduce severe feature ambiguity, systematically corrupting conventional coarse-to-fine registration. To dismantle this bottleneck, we propose SCC-Loc, a unified Semantic-Cascade-Consensus localization framework. By sharing a single DINOv2 backbone across global retrieval and MINIMA$_{\text{RoMa}}$ matching, it minimizes memory footprint and achieves zero-shot, highly accurate absolute position estimation. Specifically, we tackle modality ambiguity by introducing three cohesive components. First, we design the Semantic-Guided Viewport Alignment (SGVA) module to adaptively optimize satellite crop regions, effectively correcting initial spatial deviations. Second, we develop the Cascaded Spatial-Adaptive Texture-Structure Filtering (C-SATSF) mechanism to explicitly enforce geometric consistency, thereby eradicating dense cross-modal outliers. Finally, we propose the Consensus-Driven Reliability-Aware Position Selection (CD-RAPS) strategy to derive the optimal solution through a synergy of physically constrained pose optimization. To address data scarcity, we construct Thermal-UAV, a comprehensive dataset providing 11,890 diverse thermal queries referenced against a large-scale satellite ortho-photo and corresponding spatially aligned Digital Surface Model (DSM). Extensive experiments demonstrate that SCC-Loc establishes a new state-of-the-art, suppressing the mean localization error to 9.37 m and providing a 7.6-fold accuracy improvement within a strict 5-m threshold over the strongest baseline. Code and dataset are available at https://github.com/FloralHercules/SCC-Loc.

Wen Zhang, Long Jin, Yushan Zhu et al.

Natural language question answering (QA) over structured data sources such as tables and knowledge graphs have been widely investigated, especially with Large Language Models (LLMs) in recent years. The main solutions include question to formal query parsing and retrieval-based answer generation. However, current methods of the former often suffer from weak generalization, failing to dealing with multi-types of sources, while the later is limited in trustfulness. In this paper, we propose TrustUQA, a trustful QA framework that can simultaneously support multiple types of structured data in a unified way. To this end, it adopts an LLM-friendly and unified knowledge representation method called Condition Graph(CG), and uses an LLM and demonstration-based two-level method for CG querying. For enhancement, it is also equipped with dynamic demonstration retrieval. We have evaluated TrustUQA with 5 benchmarks covering 3 types of structured data. It outperforms 2 existing unified structured data QA methods. In comparison with the baselines that are specific to one data type, it achieves state-of-the-art on 2 of the datasets. Further more, we have demonstrated the potential of our method for more general QA tasks, QA over mixed structured data and QA across structured data. The code is available at https://github.com/zjukg/TrustUQA.

Wen Zhang, Yajing Xu, Peng Ye et al.

Knowledge graph (KG) completion aims to find out missing triples in a KG. Some tasks, such as link prediction and instance completion, have been proposed for KG completion. They are triple-level tasks with some elements in a missing triple given to predict the missing element of the triple. However, knowing some elements of the missing triple in advance is not always a realistic setting. In this paper, we propose a novel graph-level automatic KG completion task called Triple Set Prediction (TSP) which assumes none of the elements in the missing triples is given. TSP is to predict a set of missing triples given a set of known triples. To properly and accurately evaluate this new task, we propose 4 evaluation metrics including 3 classification metrics and 1 ranking metric, considering both the partial-open-world and the closed-world assumptions. Furthermore, to tackle the huge candidate triples for prediction, we propose a novel and efficient subgraph-based method GPHT that can predict the triple set fast. To fairly compare the TSP results, we also propose two types of methods RuleTensor-TSP and KGE-TSP applying the existing rule- and embedding-based methods for TSP as baselines. During experiments, we evaluate the proposed methods on two datasets extracted from Wikidata following the relation-similarity partial-open-world assumption proposed by us, and also create a complete family data set to evaluate TSP results following the closed-world assumption. Results prove that the methods can successfully generate a set of missing triples and achieve reasonable scores on the new task, and GPHT performs better than the baselines with significantly shorter prediction time. The datasets and code for experiments are available at https://github.com/zjukg/GPHT-for-TSP.

Tiannan Wang, Jiamin Chen, Qingrui Jia et al.

This work introduces Weaver, our first family of large language models (LLMs) dedicated to content creation. Weaver is pre-trained on a carefully selected corpus that focuses on improving the writing capabilities of large language models. We then fine-tune Weaver for creative and professional writing purposes and align it to the preference of professional writers using a suit of novel methods for instruction data synthesis and LLM alignment, making it able to produce more human-like texts and follow more diverse instructions for content creation. The Weaver family consists of models of Weaver Mini (1.8B), Weaver Base (6B), Weaver Pro (14B), and Weaver Ultra (34B) sizes, suitable for different applications and can be dynamically dispatched by a routing agent according to query complexity to balance response quality and computation cost. Evaluation on a carefully curated benchmark for assessing the writing capabilities of LLMs shows Weaver models of all sizes outperform generalist LLMs several times larger than them. Notably, our most-capable Weaver Ultra model surpasses GPT-4, a state-of-the-art generalist LLM, on various writing scenarios, demonstrating the advantage of training specialized LLMs for writing purposes. Moreover, Weaver natively supports retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and function calling (tool usage). We present various use cases of these abilities for improving AI-assisted writing systems, including integration of external knowledge bases, tools, or APIs, and providing personalized writing assistance. Furthermore, we discuss and summarize a guideline and best practices for pre-training and fine-tuning domain-specific LLMs.

Zhiwei Huang, Hailin Yu, Yichun Shentu et al.

This paper presents a novel camera relocalization method, STDLoc, which leverages Feature Gaussian as scene representation. STDLoc is a full relocalization pipeline that can achieve accurate relocalization without relying on any pose prior. Unlike previous coarse-to-fine localization methods that require image retrieval first and then feature matching, we propose a novel sparse-to-dense localization paradigm. Based on this scene representation, we introduce a novel matching-oriented Gaussian sampling strategy and a scene-specific detector to achieve efficient and robust initial pose estimation. Furthermore, based on the initial localization results, we align the query feature map to the Gaussian feature field by dense feature matching to enable accurate localization. The experiments on indoor and outdoor datasets show that STDLoc outperforms current state-of-the-art localization methods in terms of localization accuracy and recall.

Lu Cheng, Qixiu Zhang, Beibei Xu et al.

The transition to intelligent, low-carbon power systems necessitates advanced optimization strategies for managing renewable energy integration, energy storage, and carbon emissions. Generative Large Models (GLMs) provide a data-driven approach to enhancing forecasting, scheduling, and market operations by processing multi-source data and capturing complex system dynamics. This paper explores the role of GLMs in optimizing load-side management, energy storage utilization, and electricity carbon, with a focus on Smart Wide-area Hybrid Energy Systems with Storage and Carbon (SGLSC). By leveraging spatiotemporal modeling and reinforcement learning, GLMs enable dynamic energy scheduling, improve grid stability, enhance carbon trading strategies, and strengthen resilience against extreme weather events. The proposed framework highlights the transformative potential of GLMs in achieving efficient, adaptive, and low-carbon power system operations.

Miao Hu, Zhiwei Huang, Tai Wang et al.

Real-world robots localize objects from natural-language instructions while scenes around them keep changing. Yet most of the existing 3D visual grounding (3DVG) method still assumes a reconstructed and up-to-date point cloud, an assumption that forces costly re-scans and hinders deployment. We argue that 3DVG should be formulated as an active, memory-driven problem, and we introduce ChangingGrounding, the first benchmark that explicitly measures how well an agent can exploit past observations, explore only where needed, and still deliver precise 3D boxes in changing scenes. To set a strong reference point, we also propose Mem-ChangingGrounder, a zero-shot method for this task that marries cross-modal retrieval with lightweight multi-view fusion: it identifies the object type implied by the query, retrieves relevant memories to guide actions, then explores the target efficiently in the scene, falls back when previous operations are invalid, performs multi-view scanning of the target, and projects the fused evidence from multi-view scans to get accurate object bounding boxes. We evaluate different baselines on ChangingGrounding, and our Mem-ChangingGrounder achieves the highest localization accuracy while greatly reducing exploration cost. We hope this benchmark and method catalyze a shift toward practical, memory-centric 3DVG research for real-world applications. Project page: https://hm123450.github.io/CGB/ .

Yuhan Sun, Zhiwei Huang, Wanqing Cui et al.

In AI-powered e-commerce livestreaming, digital avatars require real-time responses to drive engagement, a task for which high-latency Large Reasoning Models (LRMs) are ill-suited. We introduce LiveThinking, a practical two-stage optimization framework to bridge this gap. First, we address computational cost by distilling a 670B teacher LRM into a lightweight 30B Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) model (3B active) using Rejection Sampling Fine-Tuning (RFT). This reduces deployment overhead but preserves the teacher's verbose reasoning, causing latency. To solve this, our second stage employs reinforcement learning with Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO) to compress the model's reasoning path, guided by a multi-objective reward function balancing correctness, helpfulness, and brevity. LiveThinking achieves a 30-fold reduction in computational cost, enabling sub-second latency. In real-world application on Taobao Live, it improved response correctness by 3.3% and helpfulness by 21.8%. Tested by hundreds of thousands of viewers, our system led to a statistically significant increase in Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV), demonstrating its effectiveness in enhancing user experience and commercial performance in live, interactive settings.

Yu Han, Zhiwei Huang, Yanting Zhang et al.

Point-pixel registration between LiDAR point clouds and camera images is a fundamental yet challenging task in autonomous driving and robotic perception. A key difficulty lies in the modality gap between unstructured point clouds and structured images, especially under sparse single-frame LiDAR settings. Existing methods typically extract features separately from point clouds and images, then rely on hand-crafted or learned matching strategies. This separate encoding fails to bridge the modality gap effectively, and more critically, these methods struggle with the sparsity and noise of single-frame LiDAR, often requiring point cloud accumulation or additional priors to improve reliability. Inspired by recent progress in detector-free matching paradigms (e.g. MatchAnything), we revisit the projection-based approach and introduce the detector-free framework for direct point-pixel matching between LiDAR and camera views. Specifically, we project the LiDAR intensity map into a 2D view from the LiDAR perspective and feed it into an attention-based detector-free matching network, enabling cross-modal correspondence estimation without relying on multi-frame accumulation. To further enhance matching reliability, we introduce a repeatability scoring mechanism that acts as a soft visibility prior. This guides the network to suppress unreliable matches in regions with low intensity variation, improving robustness under sparse input. Extensive experiments on KITTI, nuScenes, and MIAS-LCEC-TF70 benchmarks demonstrate that our method achieves state-of-the-art performance, outperforming prior approaches on nuScenes (even those relying on accumulated point clouds), despite using only single-frame LiDAR.

Zhiwei Huang, Jiaqi Li, Hongbo Zhao et al.

LiDAR-camera extrinsic calibration (LCEC) is crucial for multi-modal data fusion in autonomous robotic systems. Existing methods, whether target-based or target-free, typically rely on customized calibration targets or fixed scene types, which limit their applicability in real-world scenarios. To address these challenges, we present EdO-LCEC, the first environment-driven online calibration approach. Unlike traditional target-free methods, EdO-LCEC employs a generalizable scene discriminator to estimate the feature density of the application environment. Guided by this feature density, EdO-LCEC extracts LiDAR intensity and depth features from varying perspectives to achieve higher calibration accuracy. To overcome the challenges of cross-modal feature matching between LiDAR and camera, we introduce dual-path correspondence matching (DPCM), which leverages both structural and textural consistency for reliable 3D-2D correspondences. Furthermore, we formulate the calibration process as a joint optimization problem that integrates global constraints across multiple views and scenes, thereby enhancing overall accuracy. Extensive experiments on real-world datasets demonstrate that EdO-LCEC outperforms state-of-the-art methods, particularly in scenarios involving sparse point clouds or partially overlapping sensor views.