ManifoldGD: Training-Free Hierarchical Manifold Guidance for Diffusion-Based Dataset Distillation

Fuente: arXiv
Enregistré dans:
Détails bibliographiques
Auteurs principaux: Roy, Ayush, Lee, Wei-Yang Alex, Chakraborty, Rudrasis, Lokhande, Vishnu Suresh
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
Sujets:
Accès en ligne:
Tags: Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
_version_ 1866915820539478016
author Roy, Ayush
Lee, Wei-Yang Alex
Chakraborty, Rudrasis
Lokhande, Vishnu Suresh
author_facet Roy, Ayush
Lee, Wei-Yang Alex
Chakraborty, Rudrasis
Lokhande, Vishnu Suresh
contents In recent times, large datasets hinder efficient model training while also containing redundant concepts. Dataset distillation aims to synthesize compact datasets that preserve the knowledge of large-scale training sets while drastically reducing storage and computation. Recent advances in diffusion models have enabled training-free distillation by leveraging pre-trained generative priors; however, existing guidance strategies remain limited. Current score-based methods either perform unguided denoising or rely on simple mode-based guidance toward instance prototype centroids (IPC centroids), which often are rudimentary and suboptimal. We propose Manifold-Guided Distillation (ManifoldGD), a training-free diffusion-based framework that integrates manifold consistent guidance at every denoising timestep. Our method employs IPCs computed via a hierarchical, divisive clustering of VAE latent features, yielding a multi-scale coreset of IPCs that captures both coarse semantic modes and fine intra-class variability. Using a local neighborhood of the extracted IPC centroids, we create the latent manifold for each diffusion denoising timestep. At each denoising step, we project the mode-alignment vector onto the local tangent space of the estimated latent manifold, thus constraining the generation trajectory to remain manifold-faithful while preserving semantic consistency. This formulation improves representativeness, diversity, and image fidelity without requiring any model retraining. Empirical results demonstrate consistent gains over existing training-free and training-based baselines in terms of FID, l2 distance among real and synthetic dataset embeddings, and classification accuracy, establishing ManifoldGD as the first geometry-aware training-free data distillation framework.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_23295
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle ManifoldGD: Training-Free Hierarchical Manifold Guidance for Diffusion-Based Dataset Distillation
Roy, Ayush
Lee, Wei-Yang Alex
Chakraborty, Rudrasis
Lokhande, Vishnu Suresh
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Machine Learning
In recent times, large datasets hinder efficient model training while also containing redundant concepts. Dataset distillation aims to synthesize compact datasets that preserve the knowledge of large-scale training sets while drastically reducing storage and computation. Recent advances in diffusion models have enabled training-free distillation by leveraging pre-trained generative priors; however, existing guidance strategies remain limited. Current score-based methods either perform unguided denoising or rely on simple mode-based guidance toward instance prototype centroids (IPC centroids), which often are rudimentary and suboptimal. We propose Manifold-Guided Distillation (ManifoldGD), a training-free diffusion-based framework that integrates manifold consistent guidance at every denoising timestep. Our method employs IPCs computed via a hierarchical, divisive clustering of VAE latent features, yielding a multi-scale coreset of IPCs that captures both coarse semantic modes and fine intra-class variability. Using a local neighborhood of the extracted IPC centroids, we create the latent manifold for each diffusion denoising timestep. At each denoising step, we project the mode-alignment vector onto the local tangent space of the estimated latent manifold, thus constraining the generation trajectory to remain manifold-faithful while preserving semantic consistency. This formulation improves representativeness, diversity, and image fidelity without requiring any model retraining. Empirical results demonstrate consistent gains over existing training-free and training-based baselines in terms of FID, l2 distance among real and synthetic dataset embeddings, and classification accuracy, establishing ManifoldGD as the first geometry-aware training-free data distillation framework.
title ManifoldGD: Training-Free Hierarchical Manifold Guidance for Diffusion-Based Dataset Distillation
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.23295