Retrieval-Augmented Layout Transformer for Content-Aware Layout Generation
This work addresses a domain-specific problem for graphic design and e-commerce by improving layout generation quality, though it is incremental as it builds on existing transformer methods with a retrieval component.
The paper tackles the problem of limited training data for content-aware graphic layout generation by introducing a retrieval-augmented approach, resulting in a model that significantly outperforms baselines in generating high-quality layouts.
Content-aware graphic layout generation aims to automatically arrange visual elements along with a given content, such as an e-commerce product image. In this paper, we argue that the current layout generation approaches suffer from the limited training data for the high-dimensional layout structure. We show that a simple retrieval augmentation can significantly improve the generation quality. Our model, which is named Retrieval-Augmented Layout Transformer (RALF), retrieves nearest neighbor layout examples based on an input image and feeds these results into an autoregressive generator. Our model can apply retrieval augmentation to various controllable generation tasks and yield high-quality layouts within a unified architecture. Our extensive experiments show that RALF successfully generates content-aware layouts in both constrained and unconstrained settings and significantly outperforms the baselines.