# Guided Path Sampling: Steering Diffusion Models Back on Track with Principled Path Guidance

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.22881 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.22881/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Diffusion foundations and sampling, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 15 of its 30 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 28 Dec 2025.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Diffusion foundations and sampling](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/diffusion-foundations-and-sampling/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 15 of 15)

- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02502/) (2020)
- [Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.03585/) (2015)
- [Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11487/) (2022)
- [SDXL: Improving Latent Diffusion Models for High-Resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.01952/) (2023)
- [Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15127/) (2023)
- [Prompt-to-Prompt Image Editing with Cross Attention Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.01626/) (2022)
- [CLIPScore: A Reference-free Evaluation Metric for Image Captioning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.08718/) (2021)
- [ImageReward: Learning and Evaluating Human Preferences for Text-to-Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.05977/) (2023)
- [Pick-a-Pic: An Open Dataset of User Preferences for Text-to-Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.01569/) (2023)
- [GenEval: An Object-Focused Framework for Evaluating Text-to-Image Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.11513/) (2023)
- [Training-Free Layout Control with Cross-Attention Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.03373/) (2023)
- [Perception Prioritized Training of Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.00227/) (2022)
- [SDXL-Lightning: Progressive Adversarial Diffusion Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.13929/) (2024)
- [Layered Rendering Diffusion Model for Controllable Zero-Shot Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.18435/) (2023)

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

- [GeoShrink: Accelerating Diffusion Transformers with Two Lines of Code](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.33723/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Iterative refinement methods based on a denoising-inversion cycle are powerful tools for enhancing the quality and control of diffusion models. However, their effectiveness is critically limited when combined with standard Classifier-Free Guidance (CFG). We identify a fundamental limitation: CFG's extrapolative nature systematically pushes the sampling path off the data manifold, causing the approximation error to diverge and undermining the refinement process. To address this, we propose Guided Path Sampling (GPS), a new paradigm for iterative refinement. GPS replaces unstable extrapolation with a principled, manifold-constrained interpolation, ensuring the sampling path remains on the data manifold. We theoretically prove that this correction transforms the error series from unbounded amplification to strictly bounded, guaranteeing stability. Furthermore, we devise an optimal scheduling strategy that dynamically adjusts guidance strength, aligning semantic injection with the model's natural coarse-to-fine generation process. Extensive experiments on modern backbones like SDXL and Hunyuan-DiT show that GPS outperforms existing methods in both perceptual quality and complex prompt adherence. For instance, GPS achieves a superior ImageReward of 0.79 and HPS v2 of 0.2995 on SDXL, while improving overall semantic alignment accuracy on GenEval to 57.45%. Our work establishes that path stability is a prerequisite for effective iterative refinement, and GPS provides a robust framework to achieve it.