Method for Exploring Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) via Automatically Generated Image Galleries

Abstract

Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) can automatically generate quality images from learned model parameters. However, it remains challenging to explore and objectively assess the quality of all possible images generated using a GAN. Currently, model creators evaluate their GANs via tedious visual examination of generated images sampled from narrow prior probability distributions on model parameters. Here, we introduce an interactive method to explore and sample quality images from GANs. Our first two user studies showed that participants can use the tool to explore a GAN and select quality images. Our third user study showed that images sampled from a posterior probability distribution using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method on parameters of images collected in our first study resulted in on average higher quality and more diverse images than existing baselines. Our work enables principled qualitative GAN exploration and evaluation.