The success of training deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) heavily depends on a significant amount of labelled data. Recent research has found that neural style transfer algorithms can apply the artistic style of one image to another image without changing the latter's high-level semantic content, which makes it feasible to employ neural style transfer as a data augmentation method to add more variation to the training dataset. The contribution of this paper is a thorough evaluation of the effectiveness of the neural style transfer as a data augmentation method for image classification tasks. We explore the state-of-the-art neural style transfer algorithms and apply them as a data augmentation method on Caltech 101 and Caltech 256 dataset, where we found around 2% improvement from 83% to 85% of the image classification accuracy with VGG16, compared with traditional data augmentation strategies. We also combine this new method with conventional data augmentation approaches to further improve the performance of image classification. This work shows the potential of neural style transfer in computer vision field, such as helping us to reduce the difficulty of collecting sufficient labelled data and improve the performance of generic image-based deep learning algorithms.
We introduce style augmentation, a new form of data augmentation based on random style transfer, for improving the robustness of convolutional neural networks (CNN) over both classification and regression based tasks. During training, our style augmentation randomizes texture, contrast and color, while preserving shape and semantic content. This is accomplished by adapting an arbitrary style transfer network to perform style randomization, by sampling input style embeddings from a multivariate normal distribution instead of inferring them from a style image. In addition to standard classificat…
University College London（伦敦大学学院）；University of Edinburgh（爱丁堡大学）
In particular, the lack of sufficient amounts of domain-specific data can reduce the accuracy of a classifier. In this paper, we explore the effects of style transfer-based data transformation on the accuracy of a convolutional neural network classifiers in the context of automobile detection under adverse winter weather conditions. The detection of automobiles under highly adverse weather conditions is a difficult task as such conditions present large amounts of noise in each image. The InceptionV2 architecture is trained on a composite dataset, consisting of either normal car image dataset ,…
Carnegie Mellon University（卡内基梅隆大学）；Bosch Center for Artificial Intelligence（博世人工智能中心）
The Vision Transformer (ViT) architecture has recently achieved competitive performance across a variety of computer vision tasks. One of the motivations behind ViTs is weaker inductive biases, when compared to convolutional neural networks (CNNs). However this also makes ViTs more difficult to train. They require very large training datasets, heavy regularization, and strong data augmentations. The data augmentation strategies used to train ViTs have largely been inherited from CNN training, despite the significant differences between the two architectures. In this work, we empirical evaluate…
Suboptimal generalization of machine learning models on unseen data is a key challenge which hampers the clinical applicability of such models to medical imaging. Although various methods such as domain adaptation and domain generalization have evolved to combat this challenge, learning robust and generalizable representations is core to medical image understanding, and continues to be a problem. Here, we propose STRAP (Style TRansfer Augmentation for histoPathology), a form of data augmentation based on random style transfer from non-medical style source such as artistic paintings, for learni…
Recent powerful vision classifiers are biased towards textures, while shape information is overlooked by the models. A simple attempt by augmenting training images using the artistic style transfer method, called Stylized ImageNet, can reduce the texture bias. However, Stylized ImageNet approach has two drawbacks in fidelity and diversity. First, the generated images show low image quality due to the significant semantic gap betweeen natural images and artistic paintings. Also, Stylized ImageNet training samples are pre-computed before training, resulting in showing the lack of diversity for e…
FAGStyle: Feature Augmentation on Geodesic Surface for Zero-shot Text-guided Diffusion Image Style Transfer
School of Computer Engineering and Science, Shanghai University（上海大学计算机工程与科学学院）；Key Laboratory of Silicate Cultural Relics Conservation (Shanghai University), Ministry of Education（教育部硅酸盐文物保护重点实验室（上海大学））
Cornell University（康奈尔大学）；Delft University of Technology（代尔夫特理工大学）
A common strategy for improving model robustness is through data augmentations. Data augmentations encourage models to learn desired invariances, such as invariance to horizontal flipping or small changes in color. Recent work has shown that arbitrary style transfer can be used as a form of data augmentation to encourage invariance to textures by creating painting-like images from photographs. However, a stylized photograph is not quite the same as an artist-created painting. Artists depict perceptually meaningful cues in paintings so that humans can recognize salient components in scenes, an …
Evaluation of Randomization through Style Transfer for Enhanced Domain Generalization
German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)（德国癌症研究中心（DKFZ））；German Cancer Consortium (DKTK), partner site Frankfurt/Mainz, a partnership between DKFZ and UCT Frankfurt-Marburg（德国癌症联盟（DKTK），法兰克福/美因茨合作站点，由DKFZ与UCT法兰克福-马尔堡合作）；Goethe University Frankfurt, Department of Computer Science（法兰克福大学计算机科学系）；The Hessian Center for Artificial Intelligence (hessian.AI)（黑森人工智能中心（hessian.AI））
Stylized Synthetic Augmentation further improves Corruption Robustness
Institute of Industrial Automation and Software Engineering, University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany（工业自动化与软件工程学院，斯图加特大学，斯图加特，德国）；Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA)（联邦职业安全与健康研究所）
University of Houston（休斯顿大学）；University Hospital of Cologne（科隆大学医院）
The classification of Antibody Mediated Rejection (AMR) in kidney transplant remains challenging even for experienced nephropathologists; this is partly because histological tissue stain analysis is often characterized by low inter-observer agreement and poor reproducibility. One of the implicated causes for inter-observer disagreement is the variability of tissue stain quality between (and within) pathology labs, coupled with the gradual fading of archival sections. Variations in stain colors and intensities can make tissue evaluation difficult for pathologists, ultimately affecting their abi…
Technical University Munich（慕尼黑工业大学）；Helmholtz AI（亥姆霍兹人工智能研究所）；Munich School of Data Science (MuDS)（慕尼黑数据科学学院）；ContextVision AB（ContextVision公司）；Institute for Computational Biology, HelmholtzZentrum Munich（慕尼黑亥姆霍兹中心计算生物学研究所）
In digital pathology, different staining procedures and scanners cause substantial color variations in whole-slide images (WSIs), especially across different laboratories. These color shifts result in a poor generalization of deep learning-based methods from the training domain to external pathology data. To increase test performance, stain normalization techniques are used to reduce the variance between training and test domain. Alternatively, color augmentation can be applied during training leading to a more robust model without the extra step of color normalization at test time. We propose…
Deep neural networks (DNNs) are being widely applied for various real-world applications across domains due to their high performance (e.g., high accuracy on image classification). Nevertheless, a well-trained DNN after deployment could oftentimes raise errors during practical use in the operational environment due to the mismatching between distributions of the training dataset and the potential unknown noise factors in the operational environment, e.g., weather, blur, noise etc. Hence, it poses a rather important problem for the DNNs' real-world applications: how to repair the deployed DNNs …
In this paper, we explore creative image generation constrained by small data. To partially automate the creation of cartoon sketches consistent with a specific designer's style, where acquiring a very large original image set is impossible or cost prohibitive, we exploit domain specific knowledge for a huge reduction in original image requirements, creating an effectively infinite number of cartoon giraffes from just nine original drawings. We introduce "expressive augmentations" for cartoon sketches, mathematical transformations that create broad domain appropriate variation, far beyond the …
Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH)（浦项科技大学）
We present a novel method of learning style-agnostic representation using both style transfer and adversarial learning in the reinforcement learning framework. The style, here, refers to task-irrelevant details such as the color of the background in the images, where generalizing the learned policy across environments with different styles is still a challenge. Focusing on learning style-agnostic representations, our method trains the actor with diverse image styles generated from an inherent adversarial style perturbation generator, which plays a min-max game between the actor and the generat…
Generative adversarial networks (GANs) typically require ample data for training in order to synthesize high-fidelity images. Recent studies have shown that training GANs with limited data remains formidable due to discriminator overfitting, the underlying cause that impedes the generator's convergence. This paper introduces a novel strategy called Adaptive Pseudo Augmentation (APA) to encourage healthy competition between the generator and the discriminator. As an alternative method to existing approaches that rely on standard data augmentations or model regularization, APA alleviates overfit…
Problem: There is a lack of big data for the training of deep learning models in medicine, characterized by the time cost of data collection and privacy concerns. Generative adversarial networks (GANs) offer both the potential to generate new data, as well as to use this newly generated data, without inclusion of patients' real data, for downstream applications. Approach: A series of GANs were trained and applied for a downstream computer vision spine radiograph abnormality classification task. Separate classifiers were trained with either access or no access to the original imaging. Trained G…
Eurecat, Centre Tecnològic de Catalunya（加泰罗尼亚技术中心Eurecat）；Computer Vision Center（计算机视觉中心）；Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona（巴塞罗那自治大学）
This paper explores the possibilities of image style transfer applied to text maintaining the original transcriptions. Results on different text domains (scene text, machine printed text and handwritten text) and cross modal results demonstrate that this is feasible, and open different research lines. Furthermore, two architectures for selective style transfer, which means transferring style to only desired image pixels, are proposed. Finally, scene text selective style transfer is evaluated as a data augmentation technique to expand scene text detection datasets, resulting in a boost of text …
Deep learning using neural networks has provided advances in image style transfer, merging the content of one image (e.g., a photo) with the style of another (e.g., a painting). Our research shows this concept can be extended to analyse the design of streetscapes in relation to health and wellbeing outcomes. An Australian population health survey (n=34,000) was used to identify the spatial distribution of health and wellbeing outcomes, including general health and social capital. For each outcome, the most and least desirable locations formed two domains. Streetscape design was sampled using a…
These days deep learning is the fastest-growing area in the field of Machine Learning. Convolutional Neural Networks are currently the main tool used for image analysis and classification purposes. Although great achievements and perspectives, deep neural networks and accompanying learning algorithms have some relevant challenges to tackle. In this paper, we have focused on the most frequently mentioned problem in the field of machine learning, that is relatively poor generalization abilities. Partial remedies for this are regularization techniques e.g. dropout, batch normalization, weight dec…
Existing neural style transfer methods require reference style images to transfer texture information of style images to content images. However, in many practical situations, users may not have reference style images but still be interested in transferring styles by just imagining them. In order to deal with such applications, we propose a new framework that enables a style transfer `without' a style image, but only with a text description of the desired style. Using the pre-trained text-image embedding model of CLIP, we demonstrate the modulation of the style of content images only with a si…
Current child face generators are restricted by the limited size of the available datasets. In addition, feature selection can prove to be a significant challenge, especially due to the large amount of features that need to be trained for. To manage these problems, we proposed CADA-GAN, a \textbf{C}ontext-\textbf{A}ware GAN that allows optimal feature extraction, with added robustness from additional \textbf{D}ata \textbf{A}ugmentation. CADA-GAN is adapted from the popular StyleGAN2-Ada model, with attention on augmentation and segmentation of the parent images. The model has the lowest \texti…
SkinGenBench: Generative Model and Preprocessing Effects for Synthetic Dermoscopic Augmentation in Melanoma Diagnosis
Alliance School of Advanced Computing, Alliance University, India（印度联盟大学高级计算学院）；Department of Computer Science and Communication, Østfold University College, 1783 Halden, Norway（挪威东福尔大学学院计算机科学与传播系）；Department of Dentistry and Oral Health, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark（丹麦奥胡斯大学牙科与口腔健康系）
Hanoi University of Science and Technology（河内理工大学）；University of Aizu（会津大学）；Eastern International University（东方国际大学）
Recently, style transfer is a research area that attracts a lot of attention, which transfers the style of an image onto a content target. Extensive research on style transfer has aimed at speeding up processing or generating high-quality stylized images. Most approaches only produce an output from a content and style image pair, while a few others use complex architectures and can only produce a certain number of outputs. In this paper, we propose a simple method for representing style features in many ways called Deep Feature Rotation (DFR), while not only producing diverse outputs but also …
University of Texas at Austin（德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校）；Microsoft Corporation（微软公司）；Tsinghua University（清华大学）
Training generative adversarial networks (GANs) with limited real image data generally results in deteriorated performance and collapsed models. To conquer this challenge, we are inspired by the latest observation, that one can discover independently trainable and highly sparse subnetworks (a.k.a., lottery tickets) from GANs. Treating this as an inductive prior, we suggest a brand-new angle towards data-efficient GAN training: by first identifying the lottery ticket from the original GAN using the small training set of real images; and then focusing on training that sparse subnetwork by re-usi…
It is difficult to train classifiers on paintings collections due to model bias from domain gaps and data bias from the uneven distribution of artistic styles. Previous techniques like data distillation, traditional data augmentation and style transfer improve classifier training using task specific training datasets or domain adaptation. We propose a system to handle data bias in small paintings datasets like the Kaokore dataset while simultaneously accounting for domain adaptation in fine-tuning a model trained on real world images. Our system consists of two stages which are style transfer …
Deep Learning has seen an unprecedented increase in vision applications since the publication of large-scale object recognition datasets and introduction of scalable compute hardware. State-of-the-art methods for most vision tasks for Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) rely on supervised learning and often fail to generalize to domain shifts and/or outliers. Dataset diversity is thus key to successful real-world deployment. No matter how big the size of the dataset, capturing long tails of the distribution pertaining to task-specific environmental factors is impractical. The goal of this paper is to in…
DyArtbank: Diverse Artistic Style Transfer via Pre-trained Stable Diffusion and Dynamic Style Prompt Artbank
College of Computer Science and Technology, Zhejiang University（浙江大学计算机科学与技术学院）；Department of Computer Science, City University of Hong Kong（香港城市大学计算机科学系）
Stony Brook University（石溪大学）；Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute（伦斯勒理工学院）；UT Southwestern Medical Center（德克萨斯大学西南医学中心）
Deep learning has shown great promise for CT image reconstruction, in particular to enable low dose imaging and integrated diagnostics. These merits, however, stand at great odds with the low availability of diverse image data which are needed to train these neural networks. We propose to overcome this bottleneck via a deep reinforcement learning (DRL) approach that is integrated with a style-transfer (ST) methodology, where the DRL generates the anatomical shapes and the ST synthesizes the texture detail. We show that our method bears high promise for generating novel and anatomically accurat…
