# NIV: Neural Axis Variations for Variable Font Generation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.05261 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.05261/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 14 of its 22 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 3 Jun 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.09748/) (2022)
- [Gaussian Error Linear Units (GELUs)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.08415/) (2016)
- [FiLM: Visual Reasoning with a General Conditioning Layer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.07871/) (2017)
- [DeepSVG: A Hierarchical Generative Network for Vector Graphics Animation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.11301/) (2020)
- [Multi-Content GAN for Few-Shot Font Style Transfer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.00516/) (2017)
- [A Learned Representation for Scalable Vector Graphics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.02632/) (2019)
- [DG-Font: Deformable Generative Networks for Unsupervised Font Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.03064/) (2021)
- [Artistic Glyph Image Synthesis via One-Stage Few-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.04987/) (2019)
- [Few-shot Font Generation with Localized Style Representations and Factorization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.11042/) (2020)
- [Multiple Heads are Better than One: Few-shot Font Generation with Multiple Localized Experts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.00887/) (2021)
- [Few-shot Compositional Font Generation with Dual Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.10510/) (2020)
- [DeepVecFont-v2: Exploiting Transformers to Synthesize Vector Fonts with Higher Quality](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.14585/) (2023)
- [VecFusion: Vector Font Generation with Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.10540/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Variable fonts enable continuous variation of glyph geometry along semantic design axes such as weight, width, slant, and optical size. However, constructing a variable font from a static font remains a labor-intensive process requiring expert typographic design and manual specification of glyph variation data. We introduce NIV (Neural Axis Variations), a method that automatically converts a static font into a fully functional variable font. Given glyph outlines and a set of desired design axes, NIV predicts per-point displacements. The model operates directly on vector glyph geometry and employs a novel Property Embedding mechanism that captures interactions between multiple axes, enabling consistent multi-axis variation within a unified framework. We train NIV on a newly constructed dataset derived from variable Google Fonts, comprising over one million variation tuples. The resulting model generalizes across unseen code points, unseen font styles, high-complexity CJK glyphs, and even out-of-distribution handwriting inputs. The generated outputs are standard variable font files supporting continuous interpolation via existing rendering engines. To facilitate research, we release the dataset, the complete training and inference implementation, and trained models at https://github.com/ndvbd/NIV. Beyond typography, our approach demonstrates how structured geometric objects with continuous parametric variation can be synthesized using neural deformations.