EquiCaps: Predictor-Free Pose-Aware Pre-Trained Capsule Networks

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Main Authors: Konstantinou, Athinoulla, Leontidis, Georgios, Thota, Mamatha, Durrant, Aiden
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Konstantinou, Athinoulla
Leontidis, Georgios
Thota, Mamatha
Durrant, Aiden
author_facet Konstantinou, Athinoulla
Leontidis, Georgios
Thota, Mamatha
Durrant, Aiden
contents Learning self-supervised representations that are invariant and equivariant to transformations is crucial for advancing beyond traditional visual classification tasks. However, many methods rely on predictor architectures to encode equivariance, despite evidence that architectural choices, such as capsule networks, inherently excel at learning interpretable pose-aware representations. To explore this, we introduce EquiCaps (Equivariant Capsule Network), a capsule-based approach to pose-aware self-supervision that eliminates the need for a specialised predictor for enforcing equivariance. Instead, we leverage the intrinsic pose-awareness capabilities of capsules to improve performance in pose estimation tasks. To further challenge our assumptions, we increase task complexity via multi-geometric transformations to enable a more thorough evaluation of invariance and equivariance by introducing 3DIEBench-T, an extension of a 3D object-rendering benchmark dataset. Empirical results demonstrate that EquiCaps outperforms prior state-of-the-art equivariant methods on rotation prediction, achieving a supervised-level $R^2$ of 0.78 on the 3DIEBench rotation prediction benchmark and improving upon SIE and CapsIE by 0.05 and 0.04 $R^2$, respectively. Moreover, in contrast to non-capsule-based equivariant approaches, EquiCaps maintains robust equivariant performance under combined geometric transformations, underscoring its generalisation capabilities and the promise of predictor-free capsule architectures.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_09895
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle EquiCaps: Predictor-Free Pose-Aware Pre-Trained Capsule Networks
Konstantinou, Athinoulla
Leontidis, Georgios
Thota, Mamatha
Durrant, Aiden
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Learning self-supervised representations that are invariant and equivariant to transformations is crucial for advancing beyond traditional visual classification tasks. However, many methods rely on predictor architectures to encode equivariance, despite evidence that architectural choices, such as capsule networks, inherently excel at learning interpretable pose-aware representations. To explore this, we introduce EquiCaps (Equivariant Capsule Network), a capsule-based approach to pose-aware self-supervision that eliminates the need for a specialised predictor for enforcing equivariance. Instead, we leverage the intrinsic pose-awareness capabilities of capsules to improve performance in pose estimation tasks. To further challenge our assumptions, we increase task complexity via multi-geometric transformations to enable a more thorough evaluation of invariance and equivariance by introducing 3DIEBench-T, an extension of a 3D object-rendering benchmark dataset. Empirical results demonstrate that EquiCaps outperforms prior state-of-the-art equivariant methods on rotation prediction, achieving a supervised-level $R^2$ of 0.78 on the 3DIEBench rotation prediction benchmark and improving upon SIE and CapsIE by 0.05 and 0.04 $R^2$, respectively. Moreover, in contrast to non-capsule-based equivariant approaches, EquiCaps maintains robust equivariant performance under combined geometric transformations, underscoring its generalisation capabilities and the promise of predictor-free capsule architectures.
title EquiCaps: Predictor-Free Pose-Aware Pre-Trained Capsule Networks
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.09895