# SketchRef: a Multi-Task Evaluation Benchmark for Sketch Synthesis

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.08623 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.08623/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 17 of its 31 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 16 Aug 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 17 of 17)

- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1405.0312/) (2014)
- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.04948/) (2018)
- [Improved Techniques for Training GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.03498/) (2016)
- [U2-Net: Going Deeper with Nested U-Structure for Salient Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.09007/) (2020)
- [RTMPose: Real-Time Multi-Person Pose Estimation based on MMPose](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.07399/) (2023)
- [Cross-Domain Adaptation for Animal Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.05806/) (2019)
- [Learning to generate line drawings that convey geometry and semantics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.12691/) (2022)
- [Photo-Sketching: Inferring Contour Drawings from Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.00542/) (2019)
- [SketchyCOCO: Image Generation from Freehand Scene Sketches](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.02683/) (2020)
- [CLIPascene: Scene Sketching with Different Types and Levels of Abstraction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.17256/) (2022)
- [CLIPasso: Semantically-Aware Object Sketching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.05822/) (2022)
- [DiffSketcher: Text Guided Vector Sketch Synthesis through Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.14685/) (2023)
- [Learning Deep Sketch Abstraction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.04804/) (2018)
- [Universal Perceptual Grouping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.02312/) (2018)
- [SEVA: Leveraging sketches to evaluate alignment between human and machine visual abstraction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.03035/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [StableSketcher: Enhancing Diffusion Model for Pixel-based Sketch Generation via Visual Question Answering Feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.20093/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Sketching is a powerful artistic technique for capturing essential visual information about real-world objects and has increasingly attracted attention in image synthesis research. However, the field lacks a unified benchmark to evaluate the performance of various synthesis methods. To address this, we propose SketchRef, the first comprehensive multi-task evaluation benchmark for sketch synthesis. SketchRef fully leverages the shared characteristics between sketches and reference photos. It introduces two primary tasks: category prediction and structural consistency estimation, the latter being largely overlooked in previous studies. These tasks are further divided into five sub-tasks across four domains: animals, common things, human body, and faces. Recognizing the inherent trade-off between recognizability and simplicity in sketches, we are the first to quantify this balance by introducing a recognizability calculation method constrained by simplicity, mRS, ensuring fair and meaningful evaluations. To validate our approach, we collected 7,920 responses from art enthusiasts, confirming the effectiveness of our proposed evaluation metrics. Additionally, we evaluate the performance of existing sketch synthesis methods on our benchmark, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. We hope this study establishes a standardized benchmark and offers valuable insights for advancing sketch synthesis algorithms.