Variational Flow Maps: Make Some Noise for One-Step Conditional Generation

ArXi:2603.07276v1 Announce Type: cross Flow maps enable high-quality image generation in a single forward pass. However, unlike iterative diffusion models, their lack of an explicit sampling trajectory impedes incorporating external constraints for conditional generation and solving inverse problems. We put forth Variational Flow Maps, a framework for conditional sampling that shifts the perspective of conditioning from "guiding a sampling path", to that of "learning the proper initial noise