Learning Generative Models via Discriminative Approaches

Generative model learning is one of the key problems in machine learning and computer vision. Currently the use of generative models is limited due to the difficulty in effectively learning them. A new learning framework is proposed in this paper which progressively learns a target generative distribution through discriminative approaches. This framework provides many interesting aspects to the literature. From the generative model side: (1) A reference distribution is used to assist the learning process, which removes the need for a sampling processes in the early stages. (2) The classification power of discriminative approaches, e.g. boosting, is directly utilized. (3) The ability to select/explore features from a large candidate pool allows us to make nearly no assumptions about the training data. From the discriminative model side: (1) This framework improves the modeling capability of discriminative models. (2) It can start with source training data only and gradually “invent...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: CVPR
• Authors: Zhuowen Tu
• Keywords: Computer Vision, CVPR 2007, Discriminative Approaches, Discriminative Models, Generative Model