Unifying Dataset Pruning and Distillation for Efficient Large-scale Compression
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Abstract (arXiv)
Dataset pruning (DP) and dataset distillation (DD) fundamentally differ in their outputs: DP selects original image subsets, while DD generates synthetic images. Recently, DD's increasing reliance on original images suggests a convergence of the two directions. To investigate this convergence trend, we propose a unified dataset compression (DC) benchmark. This benchmark reveals an interesting trade-off for soft-label-DD: while soft labels provide valuable information, they can make the distillation process less essential, as distilled images may not always outperform random subsets. In addition, the benchmark reveals that in current stages, dataset pruning outperforms dataset distillation at small dataset sizes. Given these observations, we explore hard-label-DC as a complementary approach that emphasizes image quality while offering substantial storage efficiency. Our PCA (Prune, Combine, and Augment) is the first framework that does not rely on soft labels but instead focuses on image quality. (1) "P'' means selecting easy samples based on dataset pruning metrics, (2) "C'' indicates combining these samples effectively, and (3) "A'' is to apply constrained image augmentation during training. Our code is available at https://github.com/ArmandXiao/Unifying-Dataset-Pruning-and-Distillation
Key facts. Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 59 of its 73 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 10 Feb 2025.
Builds on
59 of 73 references.
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38 more
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Citing papers per year: 2025: 4; 2026: 2.
6 papers.
- 2025A Coreset Selection of Coreset Selection Literature: Introduction and Recent Advancescited by 28
- 2025Rectified Decoupled Dataset Distillation: A Closer Look for Fair and Comprehensive Evaluationcited by 1
- 2025HyperCore: Coreset Selection under Noise via Hypersphere Modelscited by 0
- 2025SubZeroCore: A Submodular Approach with Zero Training for Coreset Selectioncited by 0
- 2026Accelerating Large-Scale Dataset Distillation via Exploration-Exploitation Optimizationcited by 0
- 2026Soft Label Pruning and Quantization for Large-Scale Dataset Distillationcited by 0
- 2026Soft Label Pruning and Quantization for Large-Scale Dataset Distillation20 Apr 2026
- 2026Accelerating Large-Scale Dataset Distillation via Exploration-Exploitation Optimization17 Feb 2026
- 2025SubZeroCore: A Submodular Approach with Zero Training for Coreset Selection26 Sep 2025
- 2025HyperCore: Coreset Selection under Noise via Hypersphere Models26 Sep 2025
- 2025Rectified Decoupled Dataset Distillation: A Closer Look for Fair and Comprehensive Evaluation24 Sep 2025
- 2025A Coreset Selection of Coreset Selection Literature: Introduction and Recent Advances23 May 2025