Manifold Matching via Deep Metric Learning for Generative Modeling
This work addresses the challenge of generating realistic data in machine learning, particularly for image-related applications, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing generative models.
The paper tackles the problem of generative modeling by matching the manifold of real data with generated samples using a learned distance metric, achieving competitive results in unconditional image generation and improving visual quality in super-resolution tasks.
We propose a manifold matching approach to generative models which includes a distribution generator (or data generator) and a metric generator. In our framework, we view the real data set as some manifold embedded in a high-dimensional Euclidean space. The distribution generator aims at generating samples that follow some distribution condensed around the real data manifold. It is achieved by matching two sets of points using their geometric shape descriptors, such as centroid and $p$-diameter, with learned distance metric; the metric generator utilizes both real data and generated samples to learn a distance metric which is close to some intrinsic geodesic distance on the real data manifold. The produced distance metric is further used for manifold matching. The two networks are learned simultaneously during the training process. We apply the approach on both unsupervised and supervised learning tasks: in unconditional image generation task, the proposed method obtains competitive results compared with existing generative models; in super-resolution task, we incorporate the framework in perception-based models and improve visual qualities by producing samples with more natural textures. Experiments and analysis demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed framework.