APEX: Assumption-free Projection-based Embedding eXamination Metric for Image Quality Assessment

ArXi:2605.07786v1 Announce Type: cross As generative models achieve unprecedented visual quality, the gold standard for image evaluation remains traditional feature-distribution metrics (e.g., FID). However, these metrics are provably hindered by the closed-vocabulary bottleneck of outdated features and the assumptive bias of rigid parametric formulations. Recent alternatives exploit modern backbones to solve the feature bottleneck, yet continue to suffer from parametric limitations. To close this gap, we