# VAGS: Velocity Adaptive Guidance Scale for Image Editing and Generation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.15661 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.15661/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 41 of its 51 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 15 May 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 41)

- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01703/) (2019)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1405.0312/) (2014)
- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02502/) (2020)
- [Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13456/) (2020)
- [BLIP-2: Bootstrapping Language-Image Pre-training with Frozen Image Encoders and Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.12597/) (2023)
- [Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.12598/) (2022)
- [Flow Matching for Generative Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.02747/) (2022)
- [Scaling Rectified Flow Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.03206/) (2024)
- [Flow Straight and Fast: Learning to Generate and Transfer Data with Rectified Flow](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.03003/) (2022)
- [Improved Techniques for Training GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.03498/) (2016)
- [InstructPix2Pix: Learning to Follow Image Editing Instructions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.09800/) (2022)
- [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)
- [Consistency Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.01469/) (2023)
- [Flickr30k Entities: Collecting Region-to-Phrase Correspondences for Richer Image-to-Sentence Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04870/) (2015)
- [Null-text Inversion for Editing Real Images using Guided Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.09794/) (2022)
- [Plug-and-Play Diffusion Features for Text-Driven Image-to-Image Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.12572/) (2022)
- [Muse: Text-To-Image Generation via Masked Generative Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.00704/) (2023)
- [EDICT: Exact Diffusion Inversion via Coupled Transformations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.12446/) (2022)
- [GODIVA: Generating Open-DomaIn Videos from nAtural Descriptions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.14806/) (2021)
- [Applying Guidance in a Limited Interval Improves Sample and Distribution Quality in Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.07724/) (2024)
- [FlowEdit: Inversion-Free Text-Based Editing Using Pre-Trained Flow Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.08629/) (2024)
- [Taming Rectified Flow for Inversion and Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.04746/) (2024)
- [Semantic Image Inversion and Editing using Rectified Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.10792/) (2024)
- [Direct Inversion: Boosting Diffusion-based Editing with 3 Lines of Code](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.01506/) (2023)
- [Inversion-Free Image Editing with Natural Language](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.04965/) (2023)
- [Analysis of Classifier-Free Guidance Weight Schedulers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.13040/) (2024)

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

- [TrajCFG: Token-Wise Classifier-Free Guidance via Denoising Trajectory Feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.14153/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Classifier-free guidance (CFG) is the primary control over how strongly text semantics move a flow-based sampler, yet standard practice holds its scale fixed across the entire ODE trajectory. This is a fundamental mismatch: early steps are noise-dominated and carry weak semantic signal, while late steps commit image structure and demand stronger directional commitment; more critically, the value of any guidance strength depends on whether the guided velocity is consistent with the model's current dynamics or working against them. We propose textitVelocity-Adaptive Guidance Scale (VAGS), a training-free replacement that multiplies the nominal scale by a bounded factor combining a temporal signal-level term with the cosine similarity between task-relevant velocity fields. For inversion-free editing, VAGS measures the alignment between source- and target-guided velocities, so edit strength at each step reflects local compatibility between preservation and transformation. For generation, VAGS-Gen uses the alignment between unconditional and conditional velocities as the analogous signal. Neither variant requires fine-tuning, auxiliary networks, or extra forward passes, and fixed CFG is recovered as a special case. On PIE-Bench and DIV2K for editing, and COCO17, CUB-200, and Flickr30K for generation, VAGS consistently improves structural fidelity and generation quality over fixed CFG and recent training-free guidance variants. The code is publicly available at https://github.com/Harvard-AI-and-Robotics-Lab/VelocityAdaptiveGuidanceScale.