# Table2Image: Lightweight Tabular Learning with Generated Proxy Representations and Reliability Diagnostics

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.06265 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.06265/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 29 of its 51 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 9 Dec 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 29 of 29)

- [XGBoost: A Scalable Tree Boosting System](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1603.02754/) (2016)
- [Fashion-MNIST: a Novel Image Dataset for Benchmarking Machine Learning Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.07747/) (2017)
- [Shortcut Learning in Deep Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.07780/) (2020)
- [Understanding deep learning requires rethinking generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.03530/) (2016)
- [A Closer Look at Memorization in Deep Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.05394/) (2017)
- [Revisiting Deep Learning Models for Tabular Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.11959/) (2021)
- [TabPFN: A Transformer That Solves Small Tabular Classification Problems in a Second](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.01848/) (2022)
- [TabNet: Attentive Interpretable Tabular Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.07442/) (2019)
- [Learning from Noisy Labels with Deep Neural Networks: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.08199/) (2020)
- [Tabular Data: Deep Learning is Not All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.03253/) (2021)
- [TabTransformer: Tabular Data Modeling Using Contextual Embeddings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.06678/) (2020)
- [When Do Neural Nets Outperform Boosted Trees on Tabular Data?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.02997/) (2023)
- [On Embeddings for Numerical Features in Tabular Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.05556/) (2022)
- [OpenML Benchmarking Suites](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.03731/) (2017)
- [SCARF: Self-Supervised Contrastive Learning using Random Feature Corruption](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.15147/) (2021)
- [TabM: Advancing Tabular Deep Learning with Parameter-Efficient Ensembling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.24210/) (2024)
- [SubTab: Subsetting Features of Tabular Data for Self-Supervised Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.04361/) (2021)
- [Benchmarking Distribution Shift in Tabular Data with TableShift](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.07577/) (2023)
- [On the Foundations of Shortcut Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.16228/) (2023)
- [TuneTables: Context Optimization for Scalable Prior-Data Fitted Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.11137/) (2024)
- [SwitchTab: Switched Autoencoders Are Effective Tabular Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.02013/) (2024)
- [Trompt: Towards a Better Deep Neural Network for Tabular Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.18446/) (2023)
- [Label Noise Types and Their Effects on Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.10471/) (2020)
- [ReConTab: Regularized Contrastive Representation Learning for Tabular Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.18541/) (2023)
- [Navigating Shortcuts, Spurious Correlations, and Confounders: From Origins via Detection to Mitigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.05152/) (2024)
- [A Performance-Driven Benchmark for Feature Selection in Tabular Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.05877/) (2023)
- [Picket: Guarding Against Corrupted Data in Tabular Data during Learning and Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.04730/) (2020)
- [TabularBench: Benchmarking Adversarial Robustness for Tabular Deep Learning in Real-world Use-cases](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.07579/) (2024)
- [REFINED (REpresentation of Features as Images with NEighborhood Dependencies): A novel feature representation for Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.05687/) (2019)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Deep tabular models should ideally balance predictive performance, parameter efficiency, and robustness to imperfect learning signals---properties that are rarely considered jointly. We present Table2Image, a lightweight tabular learning model built around a learned generation pathway that maps tabular inputs into intermediate, structured proxy representations. We additionally examine a variant with variance inflation factor (VIF)-informed initialization, which downweights highly collinear features at the start of training. Across datasets from OpenML-CC18 and TabZilla, Table2Image achieves competitive clean predictive performance while remaining compact relative to several large-scale neural baselines. We further introduce a unified, severity-controlled evaluation protocol under three imperfect learning conditions---irrelevant inputs, corrupted supervision, and unstable shortcut associations---that combines performance-based robustness measures with realization-level instability diagnostics for reliability characterization. Table2Image maintains a favorable balance of performance, robustness, and compactness. Controlled ablations indicate that the learned generation pathway is a key driver of the observed gains.