Improved Evaluation and Generation of Grid Layouts using Distance Preservation Quality and Linear Assignment Sorting

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new metric called Distance Preservation Quality (DPQ) for evaluating image grid layouts and a new algorithm, FLAS, for generating visually sorted grids, both improving correlation with human perception and computational efficiency.

Contribution

The paper proposes DPQ as a more accurate metric for grid layout quality and introduces FLAS, a faster algorithm for generating visually sorted image grids.

Findings

DPQ correlates more strongly with human perceived quality.

FLAS improves sorting speed and resource efficiency.

FLAS achieves high-quality visual sorting.

Abstract

Images sorted by similarity enables more images to be viewed simultaneously, and can be very useful for stock photo agencies or e-commerce applications. Visually sorted grid layouts attempt to arrange images so that their proximity on the grid corresponds as closely as possible to their similarity. Various metrics exist for evaluating such arrangements, but there is low experimental evidence on correlation between human perceived quality and metric value. We propose Distance Preservation Quality (DPQ) as a new metric to evaluate the quality of an arrangement. Extensive user testing revealed stronger correlation of DPQ with user-perceived quality and performance in image retrieval tasks compared to other metrics. In addition, we introduce Fast Linear Assignment Sorting (FLAS) as a new algorithm for creating visually sorted grid layouts. FLAS achieves very good sorting qualities while improving run time and computational resources.