mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

SliderSpace: Decomposing the Visual Capabilities of Diffusion Models

arXiv 2502.01639 ↗First posted 3 Feb 2025cs.CV cs.GR cs.LGcited by 24

On the map: Diffusion models → Image generation, text-to-image and editing

Abstract (arXiv)

We present SliderSpace, a framework for automatically decomposing the visual capabilities of diffusion models into controllable and human-understandable directions. Unlike existing control methods that require a user to specify attributes for each edit direction individually, SliderSpace discovers multiple interpretable and diverse directions simultaneously from a single text prompt. Each direction is trained as a low-rank adaptor, enabling compositional control and the discovery of surprising possibilities in the model's latent space. Through extensive experiments on state-of-the-art diffusion models, we demonstrate SliderSpace's effectiveness across three applications: concept decomposition, artistic style exploration, and diversity enhancement. Our quantitative evaluation shows that SliderSpace-discovered directions decompose the visual structure of model's knowledge effectively, offering insights into the latent capabilities encoded within diffusion models. User studies further validate that our method produces more diverse and useful variations compared to baselines. Our code, data and trained weights are available at https://sliderspace.baulab.info

Key facts. Cited by 24 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Image generation, text-to-image and editing, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 40 of its 55 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 3 Feb 2025.

Builds on

40 of 55 references.

Closest ancestors · 11

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2024Training-free Regional Prompting for Diffusion Transformers4 Nov
  2. 2024TurboEdit: Instant text-based image editing14 Aug
  3. 2024TurboEdit: Text-Based Image Editing Using Few-Step Diffusion Models1 Aug
  4. 2023Inversion-Free Image Editing with Natural Language7 Dec
  5. 2023LEDITS++: Limitless Image Editing using Text-to-Image Models28 Nov
  6. 2023Concept Sliders: LoRA Adaptors for Precise Control in Diffusion Models20 Nov
  7. 2023IP-Adapter: Text Compatible Image Prompt Adapter for Text-to-Image Diffusion Models13 Aug
  8. 2023Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models10 Feb
  9. 2022Multi-Concept Customization of Text-to-Image Diffusion8 Dec
  10. 2022InstructPix2Pix: Learning to Follow Image Editing Instructions17 Nov
  11. 2022DreamBooth: Fine Tuning Text-to-Image Diffusion Models for Subject-Driven Generation25 Aug

Other references · 29

  1. 2021Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervisioncited by 33,456
  2. 2021High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 18,694
  3. 2021LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Modelscited by 14,084
  4. 2021Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesiscited by 8,185
  5. 2018A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networkscited by 5,986
  6. 2023SDXL: Improving Latent Diffusion Models for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 4,290
  7. 2024Scaling Rectified Flow Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 4,094
  8. 2015FaceNet: A Unified Embedding for Face Recognition and Clusteringcited by 2,833
  9. 2018Large Scale GAN Training for High Fidelity Natural Image Synthesiscited by 2,609
  10. 2022Prompt-to-Prompt Image Editing with Cross Attention Controlcited by 2,409
  11. 2021CLIPScore: A Reference-free Evaluation Metric for Image Captioningcited by 2,388
  12. 2015Unsupervised Representation Learning with Deep Convolutional Generative Adversarial Networkscited by 2,048
17 more
  1. 2021StyleCLIP: Text-Driven Manipulation of StyleGAN Imagerycited by 990
  2. 2023Adversarial Diffusion Distillationcited by 741
  3. 2019Image2StyleGAN: How to Embed Images Into the StyleGAN Latent Space?cited by 675
  4. 2024Improved Distribution Matching Distillation for Fast Image Synthesiscited by 648
  5. 2020GANSpace: Discovering Interpretable GAN Controlscited by 612
  6. 2023Zero-shot Image-to-Image Translationcited by 503
  7. 2023Scaling up GANs for Text-to-Image Synthesiscited by 492
  8. 2020InterFaceGAN: Interpreting the Disentangled Face Representation Learned by GANscited by 393
  9. 2020StyleFlow: Attribute-conditioned Exploration of StyleGAN-Generated Images using Conditional Continuous Normalizing Flowscited by 348
  10. 2023InstantBooth: Personalized Text-to-Image Generation without Test-Time Finetuningcited by 343
  11. 2020StyleSpace Analysis: Disentangled Controls for StyleGAN Image Generationcited by 331
  12. 2023PhotoMaker: Customizing Realistic Human Photos via Stacked ID Embeddingcited by 324
  13. 2023DreamSim: Learning New Dimensions of Human Visual Similarity using Synthetic Datacited by 322
  14. 2023Style Aligned Image Generation via Shared Attentioncited by 214
  15. 2023NoiseCLR: A Contrastive Learning Approach for Unsupervised Discovery of Interpretable Directions in Diffusion Modelscited by 46
  16. 2023Unsupervised Compositional Concepts Discovery with Text-to-Image Generative Modelscited by 36
  17. 2024Interpreting the Weight Space of Customized Diffusion Modelscited by 35

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2025: 8; 2026: 16.

24 papers.

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  1. 2025Distilling Diversity and Control in Diffusion Modelscited by 21
  2. 2025Kontinuous Kontext: Continuous Strength Control for Instruction-based Image Editingcited by 15
  3. 2025SliderEdit: Continuous Image Editing with Fine-Grained Instruction Controlcited by 12
  4. 2025It's Never Too Late: Noise Optimization for Collapse Recovery in Trained Diffusion Modelscited by 9
  5. 2025SAEdit: Token-level control for continuous image editing via Sparse AutoEncodercited by 8
  6. 2025A Course Correction in Steerability Evaluation: Revealing Miscalibration and Side Effects in LLMscited by 7
  7. 2026Continuous Control of Editing Models via Adaptive-Origin Guidancecited by 5
  8. 2026SLICE: Semantic Latent Injection via Compartmentalized Embedding for Image Watermarkingcited by 5
  9. 2026ELROND: Exploring and decomposing intrinsic capabilities of diffusion modelscited by 2
  10. 2025Coffee: Controllable Diffusion Fine-tuningcited by 1
  11. 2026STRIDE: Training-Free Diversity Guidance via PCA-Directed Feature Perturbation in Single-Step Diffusion Modelscited by 1
  12. 2026Explore or Converge? Stage-Guided Per-Step Optimization for Diffusion Modelscited by 1
12 more
  1. 2025CREward: A Type-Specific Creativity Reward Modelcited by 0
  2. 2026Rethinking Global Text Conditioning in Diffusion Transformerscited by 0
  3. 2026Style-Aware Gloss Control for Generative Non-Photorealistic Renderingcited by 0
  4. 2026PixelSmile: Toward Fine-Grained Facial Expression Editingcited by 0
  5. 2026TokenDial: Continuous Attribute Control for Text-to-Video Generation in Visual Dial Spacecited by 0
  6. 2026Show Me Examples: Inferring Visual Concepts from Image Setscited by 0
  7. 2026Latent-Identity Tuning in Text-to-Image Personalization Modelscited by 0
  8. 2026Contrastive-Augmented Flow Matching for Style-Content Disentanglementcited by 0
  9. 2026RankT2I: A Submodular Framework for Discovering Interpretable and Diverse Semantics in Text-to-Image Modelscited by 0
  10. 2026SemanticSlider3D: Training-Free Continuous Semantic Editing for 3D Objectscited by 0
  11. 2026Probing Perceptual Priors of MLLMs via Gibbs Sampling with Interpretable Generative Controlscited by 0
  12. 2026Measured Sliders: Learning Continuous Controls from Differentiable Image Measurementscited by 0

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2023The Hidden Language of Diffusion Models
  2. 2024Learn Once, Edit Anywhere: Visual Direction Transfer for Diffusion Models
  3. 2026DriftScope: Measuring The Hidden Effects of Diffusion Model Adaptation
  4. 2024Decoding Diffusion: A Scalable Framework for Unsupervised Analysis of Latent Space Biases and Representations Using Natural Language Prompts
  5. 2025FreeSliders: Training-Free, Modality-Agnostic Concept Sliders for Fine-Grained Diffusion Control in Images, Audio, and Video
  6. 2025Emergence and Evolution of Interpretable Concepts in Diffusion Models
  7. 2023Diffusion Explainer: Visual Explanation for Text-to-image Stable Diffusion
  8. 2024Explaining generative diffusion models via visual analysis for interpretable decision-making process