Efficient Face Image Quality Assessment via Self-training and Knowledge Distillation

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Sun, Wei, Zhang, Weixia, Cao, Linhan, Jia, Jun, Zhu, Xiangyang, Zhu, Dandan, Min, Xiongkuo, Zhai, Guangtao
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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_version_ 1866909730241249280
author Sun, Wei
Zhang, Weixia
Cao, Linhan
Jia, Jun
Zhu, Xiangyang
Zhu, Dandan
Min, Xiongkuo
Zhai, Guangtao
author_facet Sun, Wei
Zhang, Weixia
Cao, Linhan
Jia, Jun
Zhu, Xiangyang
Zhu, Dandan
Min, Xiongkuo
Zhai, Guangtao
contents Face image quality assessment (FIQA) is essential for various face-related applications. Although FIQA has been extensively studied and achieved significant progress, the computational complexity of FIQA algorithms remains a key concern for ensuring scalability and practical deployment in real-world systems. In this paper, we aim to develop a computationally efficient FIQA method that can be easily deployed in real-world applications. Specifically, our method consists of two stages: training a powerful teacher model and distilling a lightweight student model from it. To build a strong teacher model, we adopt a self-training strategy to improve its capacity. We first train the teacher model using labeled face images, then use it to generate pseudo-labels for a set of unlabeled images. These pseudo-labeled samples are used in two ways: (1) to distill knowledge into the student model, and (2) to combine with the original labeled images to further enhance the teacher model through self-training. The enhanced teacher model is used to further pseudo-label another set of unlabeled images for distilling the student models. The student model is trained using a combination of labeled images, pseudo-labeled images from the original teacher model, and pseudo-labeled images from the enhanced teacher model. Experimental results demonstrate that our student model achieves comparable performance to the teacher model with an extremely low computational overhead. Moreover, our method achieved first place in the ICCV 2025 VQualA FIQA Challenge. The code is available at https://github.com/sunwei925/Efficient-FIQA.git.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_15709
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Efficient Face Image Quality Assessment via Self-training and Knowledge Distillation
Sun, Wei
Zhang, Weixia
Cao, Linhan
Jia, Jun
Zhu, Xiangyang
Zhu, Dandan
Min, Xiongkuo
Zhai, Guangtao
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Face image quality assessment (FIQA) is essential for various face-related applications. Although FIQA has been extensively studied and achieved significant progress, the computational complexity of FIQA algorithms remains a key concern for ensuring scalability and practical deployment in real-world systems. In this paper, we aim to develop a computationally efficient FIQA method that can be easily deployed in real-world applications. Specifically, our method consists of two stages: training a powerful teacher model and distilling a lightweight student model from it. To build a strong teacher model, we adopt a self-training strategy to improve its capacity. We first train the teacher model using labeled face images, then use it to generate pseudo-labels for a set of unlabeled images. These pseudo-labeled samples are used in two ways: (1) to distill knowledge into the student model, and (2) to combine with the original labeled images to further enhance the teacher model through self-training. The enhanced teacher model is used to further pseudo-label another set of unlabeled images for distilling the student models. The student model is trained using a combination of labeled images, pseudo-labeled images from the original teacher model, and pseudo-labeled images from the enhanced teacher model. Experimental results demonstrate that our student model achieves comparable performance to the teacher model with an extremely low computational overhead. Moreover, our method achieved first place in the ICCV 2025 VQualA FIQA Challenge. The code is available at https://github.com/sunwei925/Efficient-FIQA.git.
title Efficient Face Image Quality Assessment via Self-training and Knowledge Distillation
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.15709