Offline Preference Optimization for Rectified Flow with Noise-Tracked Pairs

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Hauptverfasser: Lu, Yunhong, Wang, Qichao, Cao, Hengyuan, Xu, Xiaoyin, Zhang, Min
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Lu, Yunhong
Wang, Qichao
Cao, Hengyuan
Xu, Xiaoyin
Zhang, Min
author_facet Lu, Yunhong
Wang, Qichao
Cao, Hengyuan
Xu, Xiaoyin
Zhang, Min
contents Existing preference datasets for text-to-image models typically store only the final winner/loser images. This representation is insufficient for rectified flow (RF) models, whose generation is naturally indexed by a specific prior noise sample and follows a nearly straight denoising trajectory. In contrast, prior DPO-style alignment for diffusion models commonly estimates trajectories using an independent forward noising process, which can be mismatched to the true reverse dynamics and introduces unnecessary variance. We propose Prior Noise-Aware Preference Optimization (PNAPO), an off-policy alignment framework specialized for rectified flow. PNAPO augments preference data by retaining the paired prior noises used to generate each winner/loser image, turning the standard (prompt, winner, loser) triplet into a sextuple. Leveraging the straight-line property of RF, we estimate intermediate states via noise-image interpolation, which constrains the trajectory estimation space and yields a tighter surrogate objective for preference optimization. In addition, we introduce a dynamic regularization strategy that adapts the DPO regularization based on (i) the reward gap between winner and loser and (ii) training progress, improving stability and sample efficiency. Experiments on state-of-the-art RF T2I backbones show that PNAPO consistently improves preference metrics while substantially reducing training compute.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_09433
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Offline Preference Optimization for Rectified Flow with Noise-Tracked Pairs
Lu, Yunhong
Wang, Qichao
Cao, Hengyuan
Xu, Xiaoyin
Zhang, Min
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Existing preference datasets for text-to-image models typically store only the final winner/loser images. This representation is insufficient for rectified flow (RF) models, whose generation is naturally indexed by a specific prior noise sample and follows a nearly straight denoising trajectory. In contrast, prior DPO-style alignment for diffusion models commonly estimates trajectories using an independent forward noising process, which can be mismatched to the true reverse dynamics and introduces unnecessary variance. We propose Prior Noise-Aware Preference Optimization (PNAPO), an off-policy alignment framework specialized for rectified flow. PNAPO augments preference data by retaining the paired prior noises used to generate each winner/loser image, turning the standard (prompt, winner, loser) triplet into a sextuple. Leveraging the straight-line property of RF, we estimate intermediate states via noise-image interpolation, which constrains the trajectory estimation space and yields a tighter surrogate objective for preference optimization. In addition, we introduce a dynamic regularization strategy that adapts the DPO regularization based on (i) the reward gap between winner and loser and (ii) training progress, improving stability and sample efficiency. Experiments on state-of-the-art RF T2I backbones show that PNAPO consistently improves preference metrics while substantially reducing training compute.
title Offline Preference Optimization for Rectified Flow with Noise-Tracked Pairs
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.09433