# Improved Evaluation and Generation of Grid Layouts using Distance Preservation Quality and Linear Assignment Sorting

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2205.04255 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.04255/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 6 of its 48 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 9 May 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [UMAP: Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection for Dimension Reduction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.03426/) (2018)
- [Searching for MobileNetV3](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.02244/) (2019)
- [Fine-tuning CNN Image Retrieval with No Human Annotation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.02512/) (2017)
- [Tree-based Visualization and Optimization for Image Collection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1507.04913/) (2015)
- [Exploring Multi-dimensional Data via Subset Embedding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.11867/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Compact 3D Scene Representation via Self-Organizing Gaussian Grids](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.13299/) (2023)
- [Versatile Ordering Network: An Attention-based Neural Network for Ordering Across Scales and Quality Metrics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.12759/) (2024)
- [Creating Sorted Grid Layouts with Gradient-based Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.02730/) (2025)
- [Permutation Learning with Only N Parameters: From SoftSort to Self-Organizing Gaussians](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.13051/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Images sorted by similarity enables more images to be viewed simultaneously, and can be very useful for stock photo agencies or e-commerce applications. Visually sorted grid layouts attempt to arrange images so that their proximity on the grid corresponds as closely as possible to their similarity. Various metrics exist for evaluating such arrangements, but there is low experimental evidence on correlation between human perceived quality and metric value. We propose Distance Preservation Quality (DPQ) as a new metric to evaluate the quality of an arrangement. Extensive user testing revealed stronger correlation of DPQ with user-perceived quality and performance in image retrieval tasks compared to other metrics. In addition, we introduce Fast Linear Assignment Sorting (FLAS) as a new algorithm for creating visually sorted grid layouts. FLAS achieves very good sorting qualities while improving run time and computational resources.