Fréchet Distance optimized as FD-loss in representation space by decoupling population size from batch size improves generator quality, enables one-step generation from multi-step models, and motivates a multi-representation metric FDr^k.
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BLIP3-o: A Family of Fully Open Unified Multimodal Models-Architecture, Training and Dataset
34 Pith papers cite this work. Polarity classification is still indexing.
abstract
Unifying image understanding and generation has gained growing attention in recent research on multimodal models. Although design choices for image understanding have been extensively studied, the optimal model architecture and training recipe for a unified framework with image generation remain underexplored. Motivated by the strong potential of autoregressive and diffusion models for high-quality generation and scalability, we conduct a comprehensive study of their use in unified multimodal settings, with emphasis on image representations, modeling objectives, and training strategies. Grounded in these investigations, we introduce a novel approach that employs a diffusion transformer to generate semantically rich CLIP image features, in contrast to conventional VAE-based representations. This design yields both higher training efficiency and improved generative quality. Furthermore, we demonstrate that a sequential pretraining strategy for unified models-first training on image understanding and subsequently on image generation-offers practical advantages by preserving image understanding capability while developing strong image generation ability. Finally, we carefully curate a high-quality instruction-tuning dataset BLIP3o-60k for image generation by prompting GPT-4o with a diverse set of captions covering various scenes, objects, human gestures, and more. Building on our innovative model design, training recipe, and datasets, we develop BLIP3-o, a suite of state-of-the-art unified multimodal models. BLIP3-o achieves superior performance across most of the popular benchmarks spanning both image understanding and generation tasks. To facilitate future research, we fully open-source our models, including code, model weights, training scripts, and pretraining and instruction tuning datasets.
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- abstract Unifying image understanding and generation has gained growing attention in recent research on multimodal models. Although design choices for image understanding have been extensively studied, the optimal model architecture and training recipe for a unified framework with image generation remain underexplored. Motivated by the strong potential of autoregressive and diffusion models for high-quality generation and scalability, we conduct a comprehensive study of their use in unified multimodal settings, with emphasis on image representations, modeling objectives, and training strategies. Ground
co-cited works
representative citing papers
INSET embeds images as native tokens in interleaved instructions, outperforming prior methods on multi-image consistency and text alignment as complexity grows.
UniPath adaptively models coordination-path diversity in unified multimodal models by training a path-conditioned executor and using a lightweight planner for input-dependent selection, improving performance over fixed strategies.
XTC-Bench reveals that strong performance on generation or understanding tasks in unified multimodal models does not guarantee cross-task semantic consistency, which instead depends on how tightly coupled the learning objectives are across modalities.
Fine-tuning multimodal models on a new synthetic spatial benchmark improves generative spatial compliance on real and synthetic tasks and transfers to better spatial understanding.
Unified multimodal models exhibit pseudo-unification due to modality-asymmetric entropy encoding and pattern-split responses between text and image generation.
A pixel-space Diffusion Transformer with Unified Transformer architecture unifies image generation, editing, and personalization in an end-to-end model that maps all inputs to a shared token space and scales from 8B to over 200B parameters.
Auto-Rubric as Reward externalizes VLM preferences into structured rubrics and applies Rubric Policy Optimization to create more reliable binary rewards for multimodal generation, outperforming pairwise models on text-to-image and editing benchmarks.
Refinement via Regeneration (RvR) reformulates image refinement in unified multimodal models as conditional regeneration using prompt and semantic tokens from the initial image, yielding higher alignment scores than editing-based methods.
STARFlow2 presents an autoregressive flow-based architecture for unified multimodal text-image generation by interleaving a VLM stream with a TarFlow stream via residual skips and a unified latent space.
Prior-Aligned AutoEncoders shape latent manifolds with spatial coherence, local continuity, and global semantics to improve latent diffusion, achieving SOTA gFID 1.03 on ImageNet 256x256 with up to 13x faster convergence.
MUSE decouples reconstruction and semantic learning in visual tokenization via topological orthogonality, yielding SOTA generation quality and improved semantic performance over its teacher model.
Meta-CoT uses two-level decomposition of editing operations into meta-tasks and a CoT consistency reward to improve granularity and generalization, reporting 15.8% gains across 21 tasks.
By requiring and using highly discriminative LLM text features, the work enables the first effective one-step text-conditioned image generation with MeanFlow.
APEX derives self-adversarial gradients from condition-shifted velocity fields in flow models to achieve high-fidelity one-step generation, outperforming much larger models and multi-step teachers.
A 17B-parameter sparse MoE diffusion transformer activates 2B parameters per pass and reaches competitive quality on image generation benchmarks without post-training.
LMGenDrive unifies LLM-based multimodal understanding with generative world models to output both future driving videos and control signals for end-to-end closed-loop autonomous driving.
Uni-ViGU unifies video generation and understanding by extending a diffusion video generator with unified continuous-discrete flow matching, modality-driven MoE layers, and bidirectional training stages that repurpose generative knowledge for discriminative tasks.
MAR-GRPO stabilizes GRPO for AR-diffusion hybrids via multi-trajectory expectation and uncertainty-based token selection, yielding better visual quality, stability, and spatial understanding than baselines.
SenseNova-U1 presents native unified multimodal models that match top understanding VLMs while delivering strong performance in image generation, infographics, and interleaved tasks via the NEO-unify architecture.
UniWorld-V1 shows that semantic features from large multimodal models enable unified visual understanding and generation, achieving strong results on perception and manipulation tasks with only 2.7 million training samples.
Using understanding tasks as direct supervision during post-training improves image generation and editing in unified multimodal models.
GenLIP pretrains ViTs to generate language tokens from visual tokens via autoregressive language modeling, matching strong baselines on multimodal tasks with less data.
Tuna-2 shows pixel embeddings can replace vision encoders in unified multimodal models, achieving competitive or superior results on understanding and generation benchmarks.
citing papers explorer
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Representation Fr\'echet Loss for Visual Generation
Fréchet Distance optimized as FD-loss in representation space by decoupling population size from batch size improves generator quality, enables one-step generation from multi-step models, and motivates a multi-representation metric FDr^k.
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Images in Sentences: Scaling Interleaved Instructions for Unified Visual Generation
INSET embeds images as native tokens in interleaved instructions, outperforming prior methods on multi-image consistency and text alignment as complexity grows.
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UniPath: Adaptive Coordination of Understanding and Generation for Unified Multimodal Reasoning
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Beyond Accuracy: Benchmarking Cross-Task Consistency in Unified Multimodal Models
XTC-Bench reveals that strong performance on generation or understanding tasks in unified multimodal models does not guarantee cross-task semantic consistency, which instead depends on how tightly coupled the learning objectives are across modalities.
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Exploring Spatial Intelligence from a Generative Perspective
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Pseudo-Unification: Entropy Probing Reveals Divergent Information Patterns in Unified Multimodal Models
Unified multimodal models exhibit pseudo-unification due to modality-asymmetric entropy encoding and pattern-split responses between text and image generation.
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HiDream-O1-Image: A Natively Unified Image Generative Foundation Model with Pixel-level Unified Transformer
A pixel-space Diffusion Transformer with Unified Transformer architecture unifies image generation, editing, and personalization in an end-to-end model that maps all inputs to a shared token space and scales from 8B to over 200B parameters.
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Auto-Rubric as Reward: From Implicit Preferences to Explicit Multimodal Generative Criteria
Auto-Rubric as Reward externalizes VLM preferences into structured rubrics and applies Rubric Policy Optimization to create more reliable binary rewards for multimodal generation, outperforming pairwise models on text-to-image and editing benchmarks.
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Refinement via Regeneration: Enlarging Modification Space Boosts Image Refinement in Unified Multimodal Models
Refinement via Regeneration (RvR) reformulates image refinement in unified multimodal models as conditional regeneration using prompt and semantic tokens from the initial image, yielding higher alignment scores than editing-based methods.
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STARFlow2: Bridging Language Models and Normalizing Flows for Unified Multimodal Generation
STARFlow2 presents an autoregressive flow-based architecture for unified multimodal text-image generation by interleaving a VLM stream with a TarFlow stream via residual skips and a unified latent space.
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What Matters for Diffusion-Friendly Latent Manifold? Prior-Aligned Autoencoders for Latent Diffusion
Prior-Aligned AutoEncoders shape latent manifolds with spatial coherence, local continuity, and global semantics to improve latent diffusion, achieving SOTA gFID 1.03 on ImageNet 256x256 with up to 13x faster convergence.
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MUSE: Resolving Manifold Misalignment in Visual Tokenization via Topological Orthogonality
MUSE decouples reconstruction and semantic learning in visual tokenization via topological orthogonality, yielding SOTA generation quality and improved semantic performance over its teacher model.
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Meta-CoT: Enhancing Granularity and Generalization in Image Editing
Meta-CoT uses two-level decomposition of editing operations into meta-tasks and a CoT consistency reward to improve granularity and generalization, reporting 15.8% gains across 21 tasks.
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Extending One-Step Image Generation from Class Labels to Text via Discriminative Text Representation
By requiring and using highly discriminative LLM text features, the work enables the first effective one-step text-conditioned image generation with MeanFlow.
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Self-Adversarial One Step Generation via Condition Shifting
APEX derives self-adversarial gradients from condition-shifted velocity fields in flow models to achieve high-fidelity one-step generation, outperforming much larger models and multi-step teachers.
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Nucleus-Image: Sparse MoE for Image Generation
A 17B-parameter sparse MoE diffusion transformer activates 2B parameters per pass and reaches competitive quality on image generation benchmarks without post-training.
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LMGenDrive: Bridging Multimodal Understanding and Generative World Modeling for End-to-End Driving
LMGenDrive unifies LLM-based multimodal understanding with generative world models to output both future driving videos and control signals for end-to-end closed-loop autonomous driving.
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Uni-ViGU: Towards Unified Video Generation and Understanding via A Diffusion-Based Video Generator
Uni-ViGU unifies video generation and understanding by extending a diffusion video generator with unified continuous-discrete flow matching, modality-driven MoE layers, and bidirectional training stages that repurpose generative knowledge for discriminative tasks.
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MAR-GRPO: Stabilized GRPO for AR-diffusion Hybrid Image Generation
MAR-GRPO stabilizes GRPO for AR-diffusion hybrids via multi-trajectory expectation and uncertainty-based token selection, yielding better visual quality, stability, and spatial understanding than baselines.
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SenseNova-U1: Unifying Multimodal Understanding and Generation with NEO-unify Architecture
SenseNova-U1 presents native unified multimodal models that match top understanding VLMs while delivering strong performance in image generation, infographics, and interleaved tasks via the NEO-unify architecture.
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UniWorld-V1: High-Resolution Semantic Encoders for Unified Visual Understanding and Generation
UniWorld-V1 shows that semantic features from large multimodal models enable unified visual understanding and generation, achieving strong results on perception and manipulation tasks with only 2.7 million training samples.
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Steering Visual Generation in Unified Multimodal Models with Understanding Supervision
Using understanding tasks as direct supervision during post-training improves image generation and editing in unified multimodal models.
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Let ViT Speak: Generative Language-Image Pre-training
GenLIP pretrains ViTs to generate language tokens from visual tokens via autoregressive language modeling, matching strong baselines on multimodal tasks with less data.
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Tuna-2: Pixel Embeddings Beat Vision Encoders for Multimodal Understanding and Generation
Tuna-2 shows pixel embeddings can replace vision encoders in unified multimodal models, achieving competitive or superior results on understanding and generation benchmarks.
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UniGenDet: A Unified Generative-Discriminative Framework for Co-Evolutionary Image Generation and Generated Image Detection
UniGenDet unifies generative and discriminative models through symbiotic self-attention and detector-guided alignment to co-evolve image generation and authenticity detection.
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Z-Image: An Efficient Image Generation Foundation Model with Single-Stream Diffusion Transformer
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Qwen-Image Technical Report
Qwen-Image is a foundation model that reaches state-of-the-art results in image generation and editing by combining a large-scale text-focused data pipeline with curriculum learning and dual semantic-reconstructive encoding for editing consistency.
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Show-o2: Improved Native Unified Multimodal Models
Show-o2 unifies text, image, and video understanding and generation in a single autoregressive-plus-flow-matching model built on 3D causal VAE representations.
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Awaking Spatial Intelligence in Unified Multimodal Understanding and Generation
JoyAI-Image unifies visual understanding, generation, and editing in one model and claims stronger spatial intelligence through bidirectional perception-generation loops.
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Mamoda2.5: Enhancing Unified Multimodal Model with DiT-MoE
Mamoda2.5 is a 25B-parameter DiT-MoE unified AR-Diffusion model that reaches top video generation and editing benchmarks with 4-step inference up to 95.9x faster than baselines.
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MMCORE: MultiModal COnnection with Representation Aligned Latent Embeddings
MMCORE transfers VLM reasoning into diffusion-based image generation and editing via aligned latent embeddings from learnable queries, outperforming baselines on text-to-image and editing tasks.
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TorchUMM: A Unified Multimodal Model Codebase for Evaluation, Analysis, and Post-training
TorchUMM is the first unified codebase and benchmark suite for standardized evaluation of diverse unified multimodal models on understanding, generation, and editing tasks.
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Evolution of Video Generative Foundations
This survey traces video generation technology from GANs to diffusion models and then to autoregressive and multimodal approaches while analyzing principles, strengths, and future trends.
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