# Evaluation Metric for Quality Control and Generative Models in Histopathology Images

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.01034 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.01034/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 8 of its 17 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 1 Nov 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [Improved Techniques for Training GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.03498/) (2016)
- [Density estimation using Real NVP](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1605.08803/) (2016)
- [Demystifying MMD GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.01401/) (2018)
- [Rethinking FID: Towards a Better Evaluation Metric for Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.09603/) (2023)
- [PathLDM: Text conditioned Latent Diffusion Model for Histopathology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.00748/) (2023)
- [Efficient Quality Control of Whole Slide Pathology Images with Human-in-the-loop Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.19587/) (2024)
- [Encoding Visual Sensitivity by MaxPol Convolution Filters for Image Sharpness Assessment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.00617/) (2018)
- [Normalizing Flow-Based Metric for Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.02004/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Our study introduces ResNet-L2 (RL2), a novel metric for evaluating generative models and image quality in histopathology, addressing limitations of traditional metrics, such as Frechet inception distance (FID), when the data is scarce. RL2 leverages ResNet features with a normalizing flow to calculate RMSE distance in the latent space, providing reliable assessments across diverse histopathology datasets. We evaluated the performance of RL2 on degradation types, such as blur, Gaussian noise, salt-and-pepper noise, and rectangular patches, as well as diffusion processes. RL2's monotonic response to increasing degradation makes it well-suited for models that assess image quality, proving a valuable advancement for evaluating image generation techniques in histopathology. It can also be used to discard low-quality patches while sampling from a whole slide image. It is also significantly lighter and faster compared to traditional metrics and requires fewer images to give stable metric value.