统一分析扩散桥与流匹配,揭示其优劣与适用场景。
Diffusion Bridge or Flow Matching? A Unifying Framework and Comparative Analysis
- 从随机最优控制视角统一建模,证明扩散桥成本更低。
- 数据量减少时,流匹配插值效果显著下降。
- 基于相同架构的公平对比,适用于图像修复等任务。
扩散桥与流匹配在任意分布转换中均表现出色,但二者模型假设与实现差异导致难以统一理论评估。本文首次提供理论与实验双重验证:通过随机最优控制视角重构框架,证明扩散桥的成本函数更低,引导更稳定自然的轨迹;从最优传输角度,发现当训练数据减少时,流匹配的插值系数 $t$ 与 $1-t$ 效果逐渐失效。为验证理论,我们设计基于潜在Transformer的新型扩散桥架构,并以相同结构实现流匹配模型,在图像修复、翻译与风格迁移任务中系统性地改变分布差异与数据规模进行对比实验。结果完全吻合理论预测,清晰界定两者优劣。代码已开源。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Diffusion Bridge and Flow Matching have both demonstrated compelling empirical performance in transformation between arbitrary distributions. However, there remains confusion about which approach is generally preferable, and the substantial discrepancies in their modeling assumptions and practical implementations have hindered a unified theoretical account of their relative merits. We have, for the first time, provided a unified theoretical and experimental validation of these two models. We recast their frameworks through the lens of Stochastic Optimal Control and prove that the cost function of the Diffusion Bridge is lower, guiding the system toward more stable and natural trajectories. Simultaneously, from the perspective of Optimal Transport, interpolation coefficients $t$ and $1-t$ of Flow Matching become increasingly ineffective when the training data size is reduced. To corroborate these theoretical claims, we propose a novel, powerful architecture for Diffusion Bridge built on a latent Transformer, and implement a Flow Matching model with the same structure to enable a fair performance comparison in various experiments. Comprehensive experiments are conducted across Image Restoration, Translation, and Style Transfer tasks, systematically varying both the distributional discrepancy (different difficulty) and the training data size. Extensive empirical results align perfectly with our theoretical predictions and allow us to delineate the respective advantages and disadvantages of these two models. Our code is available at https://github.com/zhukaizhen/diffusion_bridge_flow_matching.
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