Comparative Evaluation of CNN Architectures for Neural Style Transfer in Indonesian Batik Motif Generation: A Comprehensive Study
It addresses the computational inefficiency of existing methods for batik motif generation, offering a more scalable solution for resource-limited environments, though it is incremental in optimizing architectural choices.
This study systematically compared five CNN architectures for Neural Style Transfer in generating Indonesian batik motifs, finding that ResNet-based models achieved 5-6x faster convergence and over 16x fewer FLOPs than VGG models while maintaining similar perceptual quality.
Neural Style Transfer (NST) provides a computational framework for the digital preservation and generative exploration of Indonesian batik motifs; however, existing approaches remain largely centered on VGG-based architectures whose strong stylistic expressiveness comes at the cost of high computational and memory demands, that limits practical deployment in resource-limited environments. This study presents a systematic comparative analysis of five widely used CNN backbones, namely VGG16, VGG19, Inception V3, ResNet50, and ResNet101, based on 245 controlled experiments combining quantitative metrics, qualitative assessment, and statistical analysis to examine the trade-off between structural preservation, stylistic behavior, and computational efficiency. The results show that backbone selection does not yield statistically significant differences in structural similarity, as confirmed by ANOVA on SSIM (p= 0.83), indicating comparable levels of structural preservation rather than equivalent stylistic quality. Within this context, ResNet-based architectures achieve approximately 5-6x faster convergence than VGG models while maintaining similar perceptual similarity (LPIPS = 0.53) and requiring over 16x fewer FLOPs (0.63 vs 10.12 GFLOPs). Qualitative analysis reveals consistent stylistic trade-offs, with VGG producing denser painterly textures, ResNet favoring geometric stability and canting stroke preservation with milder stylization, and Inception V3 exhibiting intermediate but noisier behavior. These findings reposition architectural choice in NST from maximizing stylistic intensity toward efficiency-aware and structure-preserving deployment, highlighting ResNet-based backbones as a practical foundation for scalable, industry-oriented batik generation.