Image-Free Timestep Distillation via Continuous-Time Consistency with Trajectory-Sampled Pairs

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Tang, Bao, Zhang, Shuai, Zhu, Yueting, Xiang, Jijun, Yang, Xin, Yu, Li, Liu, Wenyu, Wang, Xinggang
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Tang, Bao
Zhang, Shuai
Zhu, Yueting
Xiang, Jijun
Yang, Xin
Yu, Li
Liu, Wenyu
Wang, Xinggang
author_facet Tang, Bao
Zhang, Shuai
Zhu, Yueting
Xiang, Jijun
Yang, Xin
Yu, Li
Liu, Wenyu
Wang, Xinggang
contents Timestep distillation is an effective approach for improving the generation efficiency of diffusion models. The Consistency Model (CM), as a trajectory-based framework, demonstrates significant potential due to its strong theoretical foundation and high-quality few-step generation. Nevertheless, current continuous-time consistency distillation methods still rely heavily on training data and computational resources, hindering their deployment in resource-constrained scenarios and limiting their scalability to diverse domains. To address this issue, we propose Trajectory-Backward Consistency Model (TBCM), which eliminates the dependence on external training data by extracting latent representations directly from the teacher model's generation trajectory. Unlike conventional methods that require VAE encoding and large-scale datasets, our self-contained distillation paradigm significantly improves both efficiency and simplicity. Moreover, the trajectory-extracted samples naturally bridge the distribution gap between training and inference, thereby enabling more effective knowledge transfer. Empirically, TBCM achieves 6.52 FID and 28.08 CLIP scores on MJHQ-30k under one-step generation, while reducing training time by approximately 40% compared to Sana-Sprint and saving a substantial amount of GPU memory, demonstrating superior efficiency without sacrificing quality. We further reveal the diffusion-generation space discrepancy in continuous-time consistency distillation and analyze how sampling strategies affect distillation performance, offering insights for future distillation research. GitHub Link: https://github.com/hustvl/TBCM.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_20410
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Image-Free Timestep Distillation via Continuous-Time Consistency with Trajectory-Sampled Pairs
Tang, Bao
Zhang, Shuai
Zhu, Yueting
Xiang, Jijun
Yang, Xin
Yu, Li
Liu, Wenyu
Wang, Xinggang
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Timestep distillation is an effective approach for improving the generation efficiency of diffusion models. The Consistency Model (CM), as a trajectory-based framework, demonstrates significant potential due to its strong theoretical foundation and high-quality few-step generation. Nevertheless, current continuous-time consistency distillation methods still rely heavily on training data and computational resources, hindering their deployment in resource-constrained scenarios and limiting their scalability to diverse domains. To address this issue, we propose Trajectory-Backward Consistency Model (TBCM), which eliminates the dependence on external training data by extracting latent representations directly from the teacher model's generation trajectory. Unlike conventional methods that require VAE encoding and large-scale datasets, our self-contained distillation paradigm significantly improves both efficiency and simplicity. Moreover, the trajectory-extracted samples naturally bridge the distribution gap between training and inference, thereby enabling more effective knowledge transfer. Empirically, TBCM achieves 6.52 FID and 28.08 CLIP scores on MJHQ-30k under one-step generation, while reducing training time by approximately 40% compared to Sana-Sprint and saving a substantial amount of GPU memory, demonstrating superior efficiency without sacrificing quality. We further reveal the diffusion-generation space discrepancy in continuous-time consistency distillation and analyze how sampling strategies affect distillation performance, offering insights for future distillation research. GitHub Link: https://github.com/hustvl/TBCM.
title Image-Free Timestep Distillation via Continuous-Time Consistency with Trajectory-Sampled Pairs
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.20410