text: In this paper we propose a new method to get the specified network parameters through one time feed-forward propagation of the meta networks and explore the application to neural style transfer. Recent works on style transfer typically need to train image transformation networks for every new style, and the style is encoded in the network parameters by enormous iterations of stochastic gradient descent. To tackle these issues, we build a meta network which takes in the style image and produces a corresponding image transformations network directly. Compared with optimization-based methods for every style, our meta networks can handle an arbitrary new style within @math seconds on one modern GPU card. The fast image transformation network generated by our meta network is only 449KB, which is capable of real-time executing on a mobile device. We also investigate the manifold of the style transfer networks by operating the hidden features from meta networks. Experiments have well validated the effectiveness of our method. Code and trained models has been released this https URL
  @cite_8: Different researchers hold different views of what the term meta-learning exactly means. The first part of this paper provides our own perspective view in which the goal is to build self-adaptive learners (i.e. learning algorithms that improve their bias dynamically through experience by accumulating meta-knowledge). The second part provides a survey of meta-learning as reported by the machine-learning literature. We find that, despite different views and research lines, a question remains constant: how can we exploit knowledge about learning (i.e. meta-knowledge) to improve the performance of learning algorithms? Clearly the answer to this question is key to the advancement of the field and continues being the subject of intensive research.
  @cite_9: 
  @cite_2: Despite the rapid progress in style transfer, existing approaches using feed-forward generative network for multi-style or arbitrary-style transfer are usually compromised of image quality and model flexibility. We find it is fundamentally difficult to achieve comprehensive style modeling using 1-dimensional style embedding. Motivated by this, we introduce CoMatch Layer that learns to match the second order feature statistics with the target styles. With the CoMatch Layer, we build a Multi-style Generative Network (MSG-Net), which achieves real-time performance. We also employ an specific strategy of upsampled convolution which avoids checkerboard artifacts caused by fractionally-strided convolution. Our method has achieved superior image quality comparing to state-of-the-art approaches. The proposed MSG-Net as a general approach for real-time style transfer is compatible with most existing techniques including content-style interpolation, color-preserving, spatial control and brush stroke size control. MSG-Net is the first to achieve real-time brush-size control in a purely feed-forward manner for style transfer. Our implementations and pre-trained models for Torch, PyTorch and MXNet frameworks will be publicly available.
summary: The works on meta networks adopt a two-level learning, a slow learning of a meta-level model performing across tasks and a rapid learning of a base-level model acting within each task @cite_2 @cite_8 . @cite_9 proposed a kind of meta networks for one-shot classification via fast parameterization for the rapid generalization .