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Sunday 12 May 2024

VideoGigaGAN: Adobe’s Leap in Video Super-Resolution Technology

Introduction

The domain of video super-resolution (VSR) is undergoing a significant transformation, with generative models leading the charge towards unprecedented video clarity and detail. The evolution of VSR has been a journey of progressive advancements, each addressing unique challenges such as enhancing resolution, improving temporal consistency, and reducing artifacts. Amidst this backdrop of continuous innovation, VideoGigaGAN has emerged, promising to tackle these enduring challenges and set new benchmarks in video enhancement.

VideoGigaGAN is the product of a collaborative endeavor between researchers from the University of Maryland, College Park, and Adobe Research. The development of VideoGigaGAN was motivated by the ambition to extend the capabilities of GigaGAN, a large-scale image upsampler, to the realm of video. This extension aims to achieve unparalleled levels of detail and temporal stability in VSR, thereby addressing the limitations of existing VSR models and extending the success of generative image upsamplers to VSR tasks.

What is VideoGigaGAN?

VideoGigaGAN is a groundbreaking generative VSR model that has been designed to produce videos with high-frequency details and temporal consistency. It is built upon the robust architecture of GigaGAN, a large-scale image upsampler, and introduces innovative techniques to significantly enhance the temporal consistency of upsampled videos.

Key Features of VideoGigaGAN

  • High-Frequency Details: VideoGigaGAN is capable of producing videos with high-frequency details, enhancing the clarity and richness of the visuals.
  • 8× Upsampling: It can upsample a video up to 8×, providing rich details and superior resolution.
    High-quality videos with 8 × super-resolution produced by VideoGigaGAN
    source - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.12388
  • Asymmetric U-Net Architecture: VideoGigaGAN builds upon the asymmetric U-Net architecture of the GigaGAN image upsampler, leveraging its strengths for video super-resolution.

Capabilities/Use Case of VideoGigaGAN

VideoGigaGAN’s capabilities extend far beyond just enhancing video resolution. Its ability to generate temporally consistent videos with fine-grained visual details opens up a plethora of potential applications and use cases.

  • Film Restoration: One of the most promising applications of VideoGigaGAN is in the field of film restoration. Old films often suffer from low resolution and various forms of degradation. VideoGigaGAN’s ability to enhance resolution and maintain temporal consistency can be used to restore these films to their former glory, making them more enjoyable for modern audiences.
  • Surveillance Systems: VideoGigaGAN can also be used to enhance the video quality of surveillance systems. Often, crucial details in surveillance footage can be lost due to low resolution. By upscaling such videos, VideoGigaGAN can help in extracting important details which can be critical in various scenarios.
  • Video Conferencing: In the era of remote work and learning, video conferencing has become a daily part of our lives. However, poor video quality can often hinder effective communication. VideoGigaGAN can be used to enhance the video quality in real-time during video calls, providing a better remote communication experience.
  • Content Creation: For content creators, especially those working with video, VideoGigaGAN can be a powerful tool. It can help enhance the quality of raw footage, thereby reducing the need for expensive high-resolution cameras.

How does VideoGigaGAN work?

VideoGigaGAN is a state-of-the-art Video Super-Resolution (VSR) model that leverages the power of the GigaGAN image upsampler. It enhances the GigaGAN architecture by incorporating temporal attention layers into the decoder blocks, which helps in maintaining high-frequency appearance details and temporal consistency in the upsampled videos.

Method Overview
source - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.12388

The model employs a unique approach to address the issue of temporal flickering and artifacts. It introduces a flow-guided feature propagation module prior to the inflated GigaGAN. This module, inspired by BasicVSR++, uses a bi-directional recurrent neural network and an image backward warping layer to align the features of different frames based on flow information.

To further enhance the quality of the upsampled videos, VideoGigaGAN applies BlurPool layers to replace all the strided convolution layers in the upsampler encoder. This mitigates the temporal flickering caused by the downsampling blocks in the GigaGAN encoder. Additionally, it introduces a high-frequency shuttle that leverages the skip connections in the U-Net and uses a pyramid-like representation for the feature maps in the encoder. This shuttle addresses the conflict of high-frequency details and temporal consistency, ensuring that the upsampled videos have fine-grained details.

The architecture and design of VideoGigaGAN uses standard, non-saturating GAN loss, R1 regularization, LPIPS, and Charbonnier loss during the training, ensuring that it can effectively add fine-grained details to the upsampled videos while mitigating issues such as aliasing or temporal flickering. This makes VideoGigaGAN a promising solution for a variety of video enhancement applications.

Performance Evaluation 

The performance evaluation of VideoGigaGAN is an intricate process involving a variety of datasets, metrics, and comparative studies.

Comparison of VideoGigaGAN and previous VSR approaches in terms of temporal consistency and per-frame quality
source - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.12388

The evaluation metrics focus on two aspects: per-frame quality and temporal consistency. For per-frame quality, PSNR, SSIM, and LPIPS are used. Temporal consistency is measured using the warping error Ewarp. However, as shown in table above, Ewarp tends to favor over-smoothed results. To address this, a new metric, the referenced warping error Eref warp, is proposed.

An ablation study is conducted to demonstrate the effect of each proposed component. The flow-guided feature propagation brings a significant improvement in LPIPS and Eref warp compared to the temporal attention. The introduction of BlurPool as the anti-aliasing block results in a warping error drop but an LPIPS loss increase. The use of HF shuttle brings the LPIPS back with a slight loss of temporal consistency.Quantitative comparisons of VideoGigaGAN and previous VSR approaches in terms of per-frame quality (LPIPS↓/PSNR↑) evaluated on multiple datasets

source - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.12388

In comparison with previous models, as shown in table above, VideoGigaGAN outperforms all other models in terms of LPIPS, a metric that aligns better with human perception. However, it shows a poorer performance in terms of PSNR and SSIM. In terms of temporal consistency, VideoGigaGAN’s performance is slightly worse than previous methods. However, the newly proposed RWE is more suitable for evaluating the temporal consistency of upsampled videos.

The trade-off between temporal consistency and per-frame quality is analyzed. Unlike previous VSR approaches, VideoGigaGAN achieves a good balance between these two aspects. Compared to the base model GigaGAN, the proposed components significantly improve both the temporal consistency and per-frame quality. For more results, please refer project details link.

The VSR Vanguard: VideoGigaGAN’s Technological Supremacy

In the dynamic field of Video Super-Resolution (VSR), models like VideoGigaGAN, BasicVSR++, TTVSR, and RVRT are at the forefront, each bringing distinct advantages to the table. VideoGigaGAN distinguishes itself with its proficiency in generating videos that are rich in detail and consistent over time. It evolves from GigaGAN, a sophisticated image upsampler, and integrates new methods to markedly enhance the temporal stability of videos upscaled by it. VideoGigaGAN’s use of generative adversarial networks (GANs) allows it to transform low-resolution videos into crisp, high-definition outputs.

BasicVSR++ employs a recurrent structure that utilizes bidirectional propagation and feature alignment, maximizing the use of data from the entire video sequence. TTVSR, on the other hand, incorporates Transformer architectures, treating video frames as sequences of visual tokens and applying attention mechanisms along these trajectories. RVRT operates by processing adjacent frames in parallel while maintaining a global recurrent structure, balancing the model’s size, performance, and efficiency effectively.

While BasicVSR++, TTVSR, and RVRT excel in their respective areas, VideoGigaGAN’s unique capability to deliver high-frequency detail and maintain temporal consistency sets it apart. It builds upon the achievements of GigaGAN and adapts its image upscaling prowess for video content, ensuring a seamless viewing experience. This positions VideoGigaGAN as a formidable tool in VSR, differentiating it from contemporaries like BasicVSR++, TTVSR, and RVRT.

How to Access and Use VideoGigaGAN?

VideoGigaGAN is open-source and can be accessed through its GitHub repository. The repository provides the implementation of VideoGigaGAN, a state-of-the-art video upsampling model developed by Adobe AI labs, in PyTorch.

To use VideoGigaGAN, you can clone the repository to your local machine. The repository does not currently provide specific instructions for use, but as it is implemented in PyTorch, you would typically need to install the necessary dependencies, load the model, and then use it to upsample your videos.

Limitations

VideoGigaGAN does encounter certain hurdles. The model struggles with videos that are particularly lengthy those exceeding 200 frames. This issue stems from the propagation of features that go awry due to the optical flow inaccuracies in such extensive sequences. Moreover, the model’s ability to process small-scale objects like text and characters is limited. In low-resolution (LR) inputs, the finer details of these elements are often lost, posing a challenge for the model to reconstruct them accurately.

Conclusion

VideoGigaGAN represents a significant step forward in the field of VSR. It extends the success of generative image upsamplers to VSR tasks while preserving temporal consistency. With its unique capabilities and impressive performance, VideoGigaGAN is poised to make a significant impact in the field of video enhancement.


Source
research paper : https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.12388
research document : https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.12388
Project details: https://videogigagan.github.io/
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/lucidrains/videogigagan-pytorch

Friday 10 May 2024

DeepSeek-V2: High-Performing Open-Source LLM with MoE Architecture


Introduction

The evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) has been marked by significant milestones, with language models playing a crucial role in this journey. Among these models, the Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) language models have emerged as a game-changer. The concept of MoE, which originated in 1991, involves a system of separate networks, each specializing in a different subset of training cases. This unique approach has led to substantial improvements in model performance and efficiency, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in complex language tasks.

However, the path of progress is not without its challenges. MoE models grapple with issues such as balancing computational costs and the increasing demand for high-quality outputs. Memory requirements and fine-tuning also pose significant hurdles. To overcome these challenges, DeepSeek-AI, a team dedicated to advancing the capabilities of AI language models, introduced DeepSeek-V2. Building on the foundation laid by its predecessor, DeepSeek 67B, DeepSeek-V2 represents a leap forward in the field of AI. 

What is DeepSeek-V2?

DeepSeek-V2 is a state-of-the-art Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) language model that stands out due to its economical training and efficient inference capabilities. It is a powerful model that comprises a total of 236 billion parameters, with 21 billion activated for each token. 

Model Variant(s)

DeepSeek-V2 comes in various variants, including the base model suitable for general tasks and specialized versions like DeepSeek-V2-Chat, which is optimized for conversational AI applications. Each variant is tailored to excel in specific domains, leveraging the model’s innovative architecture. these variants are not just random iterations of the model. They are carefully designed and fine-tuned to cater to specific use-cases.

Key Features of DeepSeek-V2

DeepSeek-V2 is characterized by several unique features:

  • Economical Training: DeepSeek-V2 is designed to be cost-effective. When compared to its predecessor, DeepSeek 67B, it saves 42.5% of training costs, making it a more economical choice for training large language models.

    Training costs and inference efficiency of DeepSeek 67B (Dense) and DeepSeek-V2
    source - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.04434

  • Efficient Inference: Efficiency is at the core of DeepSeek-V2. It reduces the Key-Value (KV) cache by 93.3%, significantly improving the efficiency of the model. Furthermore, it boosts the maximum generation throughput by 5.76 times, enhancing the model’s performance.
  • Strong Performance: DeepSeek-V2 doesn’t compromise on performance. It achieves stronger performance compared to its predecessor, DeepSeek 67B, demonstrating the effectiveness of its design and architecture.
  • Innovative Architecture: DeepSeek-V2 includes innovative features such as Multi-head Latent Attention (MLA) and DeepSeekMoE architecture. These features allow for significant compression of the KV cache into a latent vector and enable the training of strong models at reduced costs through sparse computation.

Capabilities/Use Case of DeepSeek-V2

DeepSeek-V2 excels in various domains, showcasing its versatility:

  • Natural and Engaging Conversations: DeepSeek-V2 is adept at generating natural and engaging conversations, making it an ideal choice for applications like chatbots, virtual assistants, and customer support systems.
  • Wide Domain Expertise: DeepSeek-V2 excels in various domains, including math, code, and reasoning. This wide domain expertise makes it a versatile tool for a range of applications.
  • Top-Tier Performance: DeepSeek-V2 has demonstrated top-tier performance in AlignBench, surpassing GPT-4 and closely rivaling GPT-4-Turbo. This showcases its capability to deliver high-quality outputs in diverse tasks.
  • Support for Large Context Length: The open-source model of DeepSeek-V2 supports a 128K context length, while the Chat/API supports 32K. This support for large context lengths enables it to handle complex language tasks effectively.

How does DeepSeek-V2 work?/ Architecture/Design

DeepSeek-V2 is built on the foundation of the Transformer architecture, a widely used model in the field of AI, known for its effectiveness in handling complex language tasks. However, DeepSeek-V2 goes beyond the traditional Transformer architecture by incorporating innovative designs in both its attention module and Feed-Forward Network (FFN).

The Architecture of DeepSeek-V2
source - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.04434

The attention module of DeepSeek-V2 employs a unique design called Multi-head Latent Attention (MLA). MLA utilizes low-rank key-value joint compression to significantly compress the Key-Value (KV) cache into a latent vector. This innovative approach eliminates the bottleneck of inference-time key-value cache, thereby supporting efficient inference.

In addition to the MLA, DeepSeek-V2 also adopts the DeepSeekMoE architecture for its FFNs. DeepSeekMoE is a high-performance MoE architecture that enables the training of strong models at an economical cost. It leverages device-limited routing and an auxiliary loss for load balance, ensuring efficient scaling and expert specialization.

Apart from these innovative architectures, DeepSeek-V2 also follows the settings of DeepSeek 67B for other details such as layer normalization and the activation function in FFNs, unless specifically stated otherwise. This combination of innovative designs and proven techniques makes DeepSeek-V2 a powerful and efficient language model.

Performance Evaluation with Other Models

DeepSeek-V2 has demonstrated remarkable performance on both standard benchmarks and open-ended generation evaluation. Even with only 21 billion activated parameters, DeepSeek-V2 and its chat versions achieve top-tier performance among open-source models, becoming the strongest open-source MoE language model.

MMLU accuracy vs. activated parameters, among different open-source models
source - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.04434

The model’s performance has been evaluated on a wide range of benchmarks in English and Chinese, and compared with representative open-source models. As highlighted in above figure 1(a) DeepSeek-V2 achieves top-ranking performance on MMLU with only a small number of activated parameters. 

English open-ended conversation evaluations
source - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.04434

DeepSeek-V2 Chat (SFT) and DeepSeek-V2 Chat (RL) have also been evaluated on open-ended benchmarks. Notably, DeepSeek-V2 Chat (RL) achieves a 38.9 length-controlled win rate on AlpacaEval 2.0, an 8.97 overall score on MT-Bench, and a 7.91 overall score on AlignBench. These evaluations demonstrate that DeepSeek-V2 Chat (RL) has top-tier performance among open-source chat models. In Chinese, DeepSeek-V2 Chat (RL) outperforms all open-source models and even beats most closed-source models.

Comparison among DeepSeek-V2 and other representative open-source models
source - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.04434
Bold denotes the best and underline denotes the second-best.
 

As detailed in table above, DeepSeek-V2 significantly outperforms DeepSeek 67B on almost all benchmarks, achieving top-tier performance among open-source models. When compared with other models such as Qwen1.5 72B, Mixtral 8x22B, and LLaMA3 70B, DeepSeek-V2 demonstrates overwhelming advantages on the majority of English, code, and math benchmarks. It also outperforms these models overwhelmingly on Chinese benchmarks.

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that certain prior studies incorporate SFT data during the pre-training stage, whereas DeepSeek-V2 has never been exposed to SFT data during pre-training. Despite this, DeepSeek-V2 still demonstrates substantial improvements in GSM8K, MATH, and HumanEval evaluations compared with its base version. This progress can be attributed to the inclusion of SFT data, which comprises a considerable volume of math and code-related content. In addition, DeepSeek-V2 Chat (RL) further boosts the performance on math and code benchmarks.

Strategic Enhancements in DeepSeek-V2: A Comparative Analysis

DeepSeek-V2 distinguishes itself with its cost-effective training process and efficient inference mechanism. This model achieves high-level performance without demanding extensive computational resources. It is designed with a massive 236 billion parameters, activating 21 billion of them for each token processed. The model’s pretraining on a varied and quality-rich corpus, complemented by Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT) and Reinforcement Learning (RL), maximizes its potential.

In contrast, Mixtral-8x22B, a Sparse Mixture-of-Experts (SMoE) model, boasts 176 billion parameters, with 44 billion active during inference. It demonstrates proficiency in several languages, including English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish, and exhibits robust capabilities in mathematics and coding. Meanwhile, Llamma-3-70B, which is tailored for conversational applications, surpasses many open-source chat models in standard industry benchmarks, although its total parameter count remains unspecified.

Ultimately, DeepSeek-V2’s frugal training requirements and effective inference position it as a standout model. Its substantial parameter count, coupled with strategic Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT) and Reinforcement Learning (RL), significantly bolsters its functionality. These attributes solidify DeepSeek-V2’s status as a formidable presence in the arena of AI language models.

How to Access and Use DeepSeek-V2?

DeepSeek-V2 is an open-source model that is accessible through its GitHub repository. It can be used both locally and online, offering flexibility in its usage. For online use, demo links are provided by HuggingFace, a platform that hosts thousands of pre-trained models in multiple languages. 

Despite the constraints of HuggingFace, which may result in slower performance when running on GPUs, DeepSeek-AI has provided a dedicated solution to optimize the model’s performance effectively. This ensures that users can leverage the full potential of DeepSeek-V2 in their applications. The model is not only open-source but also commercially usable, with a clear licensing structure detailed in the GitHub repository.

Limitations And Future Work

While DeepSeek-V2 represents a significant advancement in the field of AI, it shares common limitations with other large language models (LLMs). One such limitation is the lack of ongoing knowledge updates after pre-training, which means the model’s knowledge is frozen at the time of training and does not update with new information. Another potential issue is the generation of non-factual information, a challenge faced by many AI models. 

However, it’s important to note that these limitations are part of the current state of AI and are areas of active research. Future work by DeepSeek-AI and the broader AI community will focus on addressing these challenges, continually pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with AI.

Conclusion

DeepSeek-V2 represents a significant milestone in the evolution of MoE language models. Its unique combination of performance, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness positions it as a leading solution in the AI landscape. As AI continues to advance, DeepSeek-V2 will undoubtedly play a pivotal role in shaping the future of language modeling.


Source
research paper : https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.04434 
research document : https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.04434
GitHub repo : https://github.com/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V2
Model weights: 
https://huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V2
https://huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V2-Chat

Wednesday 8 May 2024

StoryDiffusion: Revolutionizing Long-Range Image and Video Generation

Introduction

In the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence (AI), diffusion-based generative models have emerged as a game-changer. These models, including the likes of DALL-E and Stable Diffusion, have redefined content creation by enabling the generation of images and videos from textual descriptions. However, despite their groundbreaking advancements, these models grapple with the challenge of maintaining consistency over long sequences, a critical aspect for storytelling and video generation.

Addressing this challenge head-on is StoryDiffusion, a novel AI model developed by a collaborative team from Nankai University and ByteDance Inc. This model aims to maintain content consistency across a series of generated images and videos, thereby enhancing the storytelling capabilities of AI. The project is spearheaded by the Vision and Cognitive Intelligence Project (VCIP) at Nankai University, with significant contributions from interns and researchers at ByteDance Inc., the parent company of TikTok.

StoryDiffusion is a testament to the relentless pursuit of innovation in the field of AI, particularly in the realm of diffusion-based generative models. By addressing the challenge of maintaining content consistency, StoryDiffusion not only enhances the capabilities of existing models but also paves the way for future advancements in this exciting domain. 

What is StoryDiffusion?

StoryDiffusion is an innovative AI model designed for long-range image and video generation. It stands out in the realm of AI for its unique ability to enhance the consistency between generated images. This makes it a powerful tool for tasks that require a high degree of visual consistency.

Key Features of StoryDiffusion

  • Consistent Self-Attention: This unique method of self-attention calculation significantly enhances the consistency between generated images, making StoryDiffusion a powerful tool for long-range image and video generation.
  • Zero-Shot Augmentation: One of the standout features of StoryDiffusion is its ability to augment pre-trained diffusion-based text-to-image models in a zero-shot manner. This means it can be applied to specific tasks without the need for additional training
  • Semantic Motion Predictor: This is a unique module that predicts motion between condition images in a compressed image semantic space. It enables larger motion prediction and smooth transitions in video generation, enhancing the quality and realism of the generated content.

Capabilities/Use Case of StoryDiffusion

  • Comic Creation: StoryDiffusion excels in creating comics with consistent character styles. This opens up new possibilities for digital storytelling, making it a valuable tool for creators in the entertainment industry.
  • High-Quality Video Generation: The model can generate high-quality videos that maintain subject consistency. This capability can be leveraged in various fields, including education, advertising, and more.

How does StoryDiffusion work?

StoryDiffusion operates in two stages to generate subject-consistent images and transition videos. The first stage involves the use of the Consistent Self-Attention mechanism, which is incorporated into a pre-trained text-to-image diffusion model. This mechanism generates images from story text prompts and builds connections among multiple images in a batch to ensure subject consistency. It samples tokens from other image features in the batch, pairs them with the image feature to form new tokens, and uses these tokens to compute self-attention across a batch of images. This process promotes the convergence of characters, faces, and attires during the generation process.

The Pipeline of StoryDiffusion to generating subject-consistent images.
source - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.01434

The second stage refines the sequence of generated images into videos using the Semantic Motion Predictor. This component encodes the image into the image semantic space to capture spatial information and achieve accurate motion prediction. It uses a function to map RGB images to vectors in the image semantic space, where a transformer-based structure predictor is trained to perform predictions of each intermediate frame. These predicted frames are then decoded into the final transition video.

The pipeline of our method for generating transition videos for obtaining subjectconsistent images
source - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.01434

The model is optimized by calculating the Mean Squared Error (MSE) loss between the predicted transition video and the ground truth. By encoding images into an image semantic space, the Semantic Motion Predictor can better model motion information, enabling the generation of smooth transition videos with large motion. This two-stage process makes StoryDiffusion a powerful tool for generating subject-consistent images and videos.

Performance Evaluation

The evaluation process involved two main stages: the generation of consistent images and the generation of transition videos.

In the first stage, StoryDiffusion was compared with two recent ID preservation methods, IP-Adapter and Photo Maker. The performance was tested using a combination of character and activity prompts generated by GPT-4. The aim was to generate a group of images that depict a person engaging in different activities, thereby testing the model’s consistency.

The qualitative comparisons revealed that StoryDiffusion could generate highly consistent images, whereas other methods might produce images with inconsistent attire or diminished text controllability. On the other hand, PhotoMaker generated images matching the text prompt but with significant discrepancies in the attire across the three generated images.


source - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.01434

The quantitative comparisons, as detailed in table above, evaluated two metrics: text-image similarity and character similarity. Both metrics used the CLIP Score to measure the correlation between the text prompts and the corresponding images or character images. StoryDiffusion outperformed the other methods on both quantitative metrics, demonstrating its robustness in maintaining character consistency while conforming to prompt descriptions.

In the second stage, StoryDiffusion was compared with two state-of-the-art methods, SparseCtrl and SEINE, for transition video generation. The models were employed to predict the intermediate frames of a transition video, given the start and end frames.

The qualitative comparisons demonstrated that StoryDiffusion significantly outperformed SEINE and SparseCtrl, generating transition videos that were smooth and physically plausible. For example, in a scenario of two people kissing underwater, StoryDiffusion succeeded in generating videos with very smooth motion without corrupted intermediate frames.


source - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.01434
The quantitative comparisons, as detailed in table above, followed previous works and compared StoryDiffusion with SEINE and SparseCtrl using four quantitative metrics: LPIPS-first, LPIPS-frames, CLIPSIM-first, and CLIPSIM-frames. These metrics measured the similarities between the first frame and other frames, and the average similarities between consecutive frames, reflecting the overall and frame-to-frame continuity of the video. StoryDiffusion outperformed the other two methods across all four quantitative metrics, demonstrating its strong performance in generating consistent and seamless transition videos.


source - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.01434

The performance evaluation of StoryDiffusion, as detailed in table above, shows its superior capabilities in generating subject-consistent images and transition videos. Its robustness in maintaining character consistency and its ability to generate smooth and physically plausible videos make it a promising method in the field of AI and machine learning. Further details can be found in the supplementary materials.

StoryDiffusion’s Role in Advancing AI-Driven Visual Storytelling

The landscape of AI models for image and video generation is rich with innovation, where models like StoryDiffusion, IP-Adapter, and Photo Maker each contribute distinct capabilities.

StoryDiffusion is engineered for extended image and video narratives, employing a consistent self-attention mechanism to ensure the uniformity of character appearances throughout a story. This feature is pivotal for coherent storytelling. Moreover, StoryDiffusion’s image semantic motion predictor is instrumental in producing videos of high fidelity. The model’s fine-tuning process, which tailors it with a focused dataset, enhances its task-specific performance.

In contrast, IP-Adapter is a nimble adapter that imparts image prompt functionality to existing text-to-image diffusion models. Despite its lean structure of only 22M parameters, it delivers results that rival or exceed those of models fine-tuned for image prompts.

Photo Maker provides a unique service, enabling users to generate personalized photos or artworks from a few facial images and a text prompt. This model is adaptable to any SDXL-based base model and can be integrated with other LoRA modules for enhanced functionality.

While IP-Adapter and Photo Maker offer valuable features, StoryDiffusion distinguishes itself with its specialized capabilities. Its commitment to maintaining narrative integrity through consistent visual elements and its proficiency in generating high-quality videos mark it as a significant advancement in AI models for image and video generation.

How to Access and Use this Model?

StoryDiffusion is an open-source model that is readily accessible for anyone interested in AI and content generation. The model’s GitHub repository serves as the primary access point, providing comprehensive instructions for local setup and usage. This allows users to experiment with the model in their local environment.

In addition to local usage, StoryDiffusion also supports online usage. Users can generate comics using the provided Jupyter notebook or start a local gradio demo, offering flexibility in how the model is used.

Limitations and Future Work

While StoryDiffusion represents a leap forward, it is not without limitations. Currently, it struggles with generating very long videos due to the absence of global information exchange. Future work will focus on enhancing its capabilities for long video generation.

Conclusion

StoryDiffusion is a pioneering exploration in visual story generation, offering a new perspective on the capabilities of AI in content consistency. As AI continues to advance, models like StoryDiffusion will play a crucial role in shaping the future of digital storytelling and content creation.


Source
research paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.01434
research document: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.01434
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/HVision-NKU/StoryDiffusion
Project details: https://storydiffusion.github.io/

Monday 6 May 2024

EchoScene: Revolutionizing 3D Indoor Scene Generation with AI

Introduction

The field of generative models is experiencing a rapid evolution, transforming the way we create and interact with digital content. One of the most intricate tasks these models tackle is the generation of 3D indoor scenes. This task demands a deep understanding of complex spatial relationships and object properties. Amidst this landscape, EchoScene has emerged as a groundbreaking solution, addressing specific challenges and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in scene generation.

Generative models have been progressively improving, adapting to address intricate problem statements and challenges. A notable challenge is the generation of 3D indoor scenes, a task that requires models to comprehend complex spatial relationships and object attributes. Current generative models encounter difficulties in managing scene graphs due to the variability in the number of nodes, multiple edge combinations, and manipulator-induced node-edge operations. EchoScene, an innovative AI model, is designed to tackle these specific issues.

EchoScene is the result of the collaborative efforts of a team of researchers from the Technical University of Munich, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and Google. The team’s primary motivation behind the development of EchoScene was to enhance the controllability and consistency of 3D indoor scene generation. This model embodies the collaborative spirit of AI research, with the project’s motto being to push the boundaries of controllable and interactive scene generation.

What is EchoScene?

EchoScene is a state-of-the-art generative model that stands at the intersection of interactivity and control. It is designed to generate 3D indoor scenes using scene graphs, a task that requires a deep understanding of spatial relationships and object properties.

EchoScene Schematic
source - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.00915

 EchoScene distinguishes itself with its dual-branch diffusion model, which dynamically adapts to the complexities of scene graphs, ensuring a high degree of flexibility and adaptability.

Key Features of EchoScene

EchoScene boasts several unique features that set it apart:

  • Interactive Denoising: EchoScene associates each node within a scene graph with a denoising process. This unique approach facilitates collaborative information exchange, enhancing the model’s ability to generate complex scenes.
  • Controllable Generation: EchoScene ensures controllable and consistent generation, even when faced with global constraints. This feature enhances the model’s versatility and applicability in various scenarios.
  • Information Echo Scheme: EchoScene employs an information echo scheme in both shape and layout branches. This innovative feature allows the model to maintain a holistic understanding of the scene graph, thereby facilitating the generation of globally coherent scenes.

Capabilities/Use Case of EchoScene

EchoScene’s capabilities extend beyond mere scene generation, making it a valuable asset in various real-world applications:

  • Scene Manipulation: EchoScene allows for the manipulation of 3D indoor scenes during inference by editing the input scene graph and sampling the noise in the diffusion model. This capability makes it a powerful tool for creating diverse and realistic indoor environments.
  • Compatibility with Existing Methods: EchoScene’s ability to generate high-quality scenes that are directly compatible with existing texture generation methods broadens its applicability in content creation, from virtual reality to autonomous driving. This compatibility ensures that EchoScene can seamlessly integrate with existing workflows, enhancing productivity and efficiency.

How EchoScene Works: Architecture and Design

EchoScene operates by transforming a contextual graph into a latent space. This transformation is facilitated by an encoder and a manipulator based on triplet-GCN, as depicted in figure below section A. The latent nodes are then separately conditioned to layout and shape branches, as shown in figure below section B.

Overview of EchoScene
source - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.00915

In the layout branch, each diffusion process interacts with each other through a layout echo at every denoising step. This interaction ensures that the final layout generation aligns with the scene graph description. Similarly, in the shape branch, each diffusion process interacts with each other through a shape echo, ensuring that the final shapes generated in the scene are consistent.

The architecture of EchoScene is characterized by its dual-branch diffusion model, which includes shape and layout branches. Each node in these branches undergoes a denoising process, sharing data with an information exchange unit that employs graph convolution for updates. This is achieved through an information echo scheme, which ensures that the denoising processes are influenced by a holistic understanding of the scene graph, facilitating the generation of globally coherent scenes.

The design of EchoScene is centered around the concept of an information echo scheme in graph diffusion. This scheme addresses the challenges posed by dynamic data structures, such as scene graphs. EchoScene assigns each node in the graph an individual denoising process, forming a diffusion model for specific tasks. This makes the content generation fully controllable by node and edge manipulation. The cornerstone of the echo is the introduction of an information exchange unit that enables dynamic and interactive diffusion processes among the elements of a dynamic graph. This is illustrated in figure above, which provides an overview of EchoScene’s pipeline, consisting of graph preprocessing and two collaborative branches: Layout Branch and Shape Branch. This intricate design and architecture make EchoScene a powerful tool in the realm of 3D indoor scene generation.

Performance Evaluation

In assessing EchoScene’s performance, a thorough benchmarking against other models spotlights its strengths in scene generation, adherence to graph constraints, and object detail. Below is an encapsulation of the evaluation.

Scene Generation realism
source - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.00915

Scene Fidelity: Metrics such as FID, FIDCLIP, and KID gauge EchoScene’s accuracy in rendering scenes. The model demonstrates a marked improvement over predecessors like CommonScenes, with a 15% enhancement in FID, a 12% increase in FIDCLIP, and a significant 73% leap in KID for bedroom scene creation.

Scene Graph Constraints
source - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.00915

Graph Constraints: EchoScene’s compliance with scene graph constraints is verified through latent space manipulations. It excels beyond 3D-SLN and CommonScenes, reliably upholding spatial relationships like ‘smaller/larger’ and ‘close by’ post-manipulation.

Object-Level Analysis: The quality and variety of object shapes are scrutinized using MMD, COV, and 1-NNA2 metrics. EchoScene outstrips CommonScenes in matching distributional similarity, reflecting its superior capability in crafting object shapes.

Qualitative assessments further affirm EchoScene’s prowess, showcasing greater consistency between objects and overall quality in scene generation. Its compatibility with standard texture generators also augments scene realism. Collectively, EchoScene stands out for its enhanced fidelity in scene generation and its adeptness at managing graph-based manipulations.

EchoScene Versus Peers: A Comparative Look at 3D Scene Generation

The landscape of 3D scene generation is rich with innovative models, among which EchoScene, CommonScenes, and Graph-to-3D are particularly noteworthy. Each model introduces distinct features; however, EchoScene’s dynamic adaptability and its novel information echo mechanism set it apart.

EchoScene’s prowess lies in its interactive and controllable generation of 3D indoor scenes through scene graphs. Its dual-branch diffusion model, which is fine-tuned to the nuances of scene graphs, and the information echo scheme that permeates both shape and layout branches, ensure a comprehensive understanding of the scene graph. This leads to the creation of globally coherent scenes, a significant advantage over its counterparts.

In contrast, CommonScenes and Graph-to-3D also present strong capabilities. CommonScenes translates scene graphs into semantically realistic 3D scenes, leveraging a variational auto-encoder for layout prediction and latent diffusion for shape generation. Graph-to-3D pioneers in fully-learned 3D scene generation from scene graphs, offering user-driven scene customization.

EchoScene’s unique approach to scene graph adaptability and information processing enables the generation of 3D indoor scenes with unparalleled fidelity and control, ensuring global coherence and setting a new standard in the field. This positions EchoScene as a formidable tool in 3D scene generation, distinct from CommonScenes and Graph-to-3D.

How to Access and Use this model?

EchoScene’s code and trained models are open-sourced and can be accessed on GitHub. The GitHub repository provides detailed instructions on how to set up the environment, download necessary datasets, train the models, and evaluate the models. It is important to note that EchoScene is a research project and its usage may require a certain level of technical expertise.

Limitation

While EchoScene is a multifaceted tool with uses in areas like robotic vision and manipulation, it does face certain limitations. A notable constraint is its lack of texture generation capabilities. This means that EchoScene falls short in tasks requiring photorealistic textures. However, this limitation is not unbeatable. The high-quality scenes produced by EchoScene can be further improved by combining them with an external texture generator.

Conclusion

EchoScene represents a significant leap in generative model capabilities, offering a glimpse into the future of AI-driven content creation. Its development reflects the collaborative effort and innovative spirit driving the field forward.


Source
research paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.00915
research document: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.00915
project details: https://sites.google.com/view/echoscene
GitHub: https://github.com/ymxlzgy/echoscene

Saturday 4 May 2024

Med-Gemini: Google and DeepMind’s Leap in Medical AI

Introduction

The medical landscape is in the midst of a transformative phase, with technology playing a pivotal role in reshaping healthcare delivery and patient care. The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into medical applications has ushered in a new era of possibilities, addressing some of the most critical challenges faced by healthcare professionals today. From AI-driven predictive analytics to personalized medicine and advanced imaging techniques, these innovations are revolutionizing our approach to medical problems.

However, this rapid advancement is not without its challenges. Data privacy concerns, the need for robust AI training datasets, and the seamless integration of AI into existing healthcare systems are some of the hurdles that need to be overcome. Amidst these challenges, a new AI model, Med-Gemini, has emerged with the potential to make significant contributions to the advancement of AI in medicine.


source - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.18416

Med-Gemini is the result of a collaborative effort between Google and DeepMind. Developed by a team of dedicated researchers,  Med-Gemini aims to excel in a variety of medical applications. It is designed to not only perform advanced reasoning but also to have access to the latest medical knowledge and understand complex multimodal data. The development of Med-Gemini aligns with Google and DeepMind’s commitment to leveraging AI to solve complex problems and improve lives. The team behind Med-Gemini sought to create a model that could leverage the core strengths of the Gemini architecture while specializing in the medical domain.

What is Med-Gemini?

Med-Gemini is an innovative family of multimodal models that are specifically designed for the medical field. These models are built upon the robust foundation of Gemini, a set of models developed by Google, renowned for their exceptional capabilities in multimodal and long-context reasoning. 

Key Features of Med-Gemini

Med-Gemini is equipped with several unique features that make it stand out:

  • Advanced Reasoning Capabilities: Med-Gemini is designed to provide more factually accurate and nuanced responses to complex clinical queries. This is achieved through self-training and integration with web search, enhancing its reasoning capabilities.
  • Enhanced Multimodal Understanding: Med-Gemini can adapt to novel medical data types like electrocardiograms. This feature allows it to understand and process a wide range of medical data, enhancing its versatility in the medical field.
  • Efficient Long-Context Processing: Med-Gemini has the ability to reason over lengthy medical records and videos. This feature is particularly useful in the medical field where comprehensive analysis of extensive data is often required.

Capabilities/Use Case of Med-Gemini

Med-Gemini’s capabilities span across multiple medical disciplines, showcasing its versatility and potential in healthcare innovation:

  • Enhanced Disease Diagnosis: Med-Gemini’s training enables it to scrutinize medical imagery with remarkable precision, facilitating the identification of disease markers and aiding in early diagnosis.
  • Personalized Medicine: Leveraging individual patient data, Med-Gemini customizes therapeutic strategies and medication regimens, aligning treatment with personal health profiles.
  • Drug Discovery and Development: In the realm of pharmacology, Med-Gemini accelerates the discovery and validation of new drug candidates, streamlining the path from laboratory research to clinical trials.
  • Predictive Analytics: Utilizing data from public health records and personal health devices, Med-Gemini forecasts health trends and potential epidemics, contributing to proactive public health measures.
  • Medical Text Summarization: Med-Gemini has been evaluated against expert human performance in condensing medical texts, demonstrating its capacity to support healthcare professionals with succinct, actionable summaries.

How does Med-Gemini work?

Med-Gemini harnesses the power of AI in three distinct yet interconnected domains: clinical reasoning, multimodal data interpretation, and processing extensive medical histories.

Clinical Reasoning: At its core, Med-Gemini mimics the analytical thought process of healthcare experts. It’s capable of breaking down intricate medical inquiries, considering a multitude of aspects, and providing well-thought-out conclusions. This feature is crucial for tasks demanding a deep grasp of medical literature and practices.

Multimodal Understanding: Med-Gemini’s proficiency extends to interpreting various forms of medical data, be it textual, visual, or even complex signals like ECGs. This versatility enables the model to be applicable across different medical contexts, offering relevant insights and assessments.

Long-Context Processing: The medical sector often deals with detailed patient histories and complex data. Med-Gemini is adept at managing such extensive information, allowing it to analyze and reason through detailed medical records and lengthy diagnostic videos.

To realize these functions, Med-Gemini utilizes a blend of fine-tuning and self-training methods.

Fine-Tuning: Fine-tuning involves adapting a pre-existing model, here the Gemini 1.0 Ultra, to improve its performance on specialized tasks. The Med-Gemini-L 1.0, designed for sophisticated reasoning tasks, is a product of this fine-tuning, equipping the model with the expertise needed for medical applications.

Self-Training with Search: Self-training allows Med-Gemini to learn from its own generated predictions. Combined with web search, this technique bolsters the model’s reasoning capabilities. Through an iterative process, Med-Gemini produces ‘Chain-of-Thoughts’ (CoTs) responses, refining its use of external data to enhance accuracy and adaptability.

Self-training and search tool-use
source - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.18416

Uncertainty-Guided Search Process: During its operation, Med-Gemini-L 1.0 employs a unique uncertainty-guided search mechanism. This involves creating various reasoning pathways and selecting the most certain ones. It then formulates search queries to clarify uncertainties, integrating the search findings to inform more precise responses. This cyclical method significantly improves Med-Gemini’s proficiency in delivering detailed and accurate answers to complex medical questions.

Performance Evaluation of Med-Gemini

Med-Gemini has demonstrated exceptional performance, establishing new benchmarks in the medical domain. As shown in below figure, It has achieved state-of-the-art results on 10 out of 14 medical benchmarks, outperforming the GPT-4 model family in every instance where they were directly compared.

Medical Benchmarking
source - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.18416

Specifically, on the MedQA (USMLE) benchmark, as shown in below table, Med-Gemini-L 1.0 reached an impressive 91.1% accuracy, creating a new benchmark for excellence. This model not only exceeded the performance of its predecessor, Med-PaLM 2, by 4.5% but also edged out the GPT-4 enhanced with specialized prompting known as MedPrompt by 0.9%. Med-Gemini’s methodology, which incorporates a general web search within an uncertainty-guided framework, offers a scalable solution for more intricate medical queries beyond the scope of MedQA.

Performance comparison of Med-Gemini-L 1.0 versus state-of-the-art (SoTA) methods
source - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.18416

In the realm of diagnostic challenges, such as those presented by the NEJM CPC benchmark, Med-Gemini-L 1.0’s performance was superior to the AMIE model—which itself is an improvement over GPT-4—by a significant margin of 13.2% in top-10 accuracy. This approach to search integration has also proven to be effective in genomics knowledge tasks.

When examining the GeneTuring modules, Med-Gemini-L 1.0 outshone the leading models in seven different categories, including Gene name extraction, Gene alias, and Gene ontology, among others. It is important to note that while GeneGPT achieves higher scores through specialized web APIs, our comparison is with previous models that, like ours, rely on a general web search.

The impact of self-training coupled with uncertainty-guided search on Med-Gemini-L 1.0’s performance is noteworthy. When compared to its performance without self-training, there was a significant improvement of 3.2% in accuracy. Furthermore, with each successive round of uncertainty-guided search, the accuracy rose from 87.2% to 91.1%.

Access and Use

Med-Gemini is currently in the developmental research stage and has not been released for general public application. Nonetheless, those interested in understanding its framework and potential applications can refer to the pre-print research documentation that is accessible for academic review and study. Relevant links are provided at the end of this article.

Limitations  

While Med-Gemini has shown promising results, It has certain limitations: 

Med-Gemini faces challenges in clinical reasoning under uncertainty, and may exhibit confabulations and bias. It requires further research to restrict search results to authoritative medical sources and analyze their accuracy. Certain medical modalities not heavily represented in pretraining data could limit its effectiveness. Rigorous validation is crucial before deployment in safety-critical domains. Improvement is needed in tasks like retrieval from lengthy health records or medical video understanding.

Conclusion

Med-Gemini represents a significant leap forward in medical AI, with its advanced capabilities and potential for real-world applications. Med-Gemini could be a game-changer in healthcare, offering solutions to complex medical challenges and paving the way for future innovations in the field. The ongoing development and evaluation of Med-Gemini will undoubtedly continue to contribute to the advancement of AI in medicine.


Source
Research paper : https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.18416
Research document: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.18416


Disclaimer - It’s important to note that the article is intended to be informational and is based on a research paper available on arXiv. It does not provide medical advice or diagnosis. The article aims to inform readers about the advancements in AI in the medical field, specifically about the Med-Gemini model.

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