2 research outputs found
Coordinate Independent Convolutional Networks -- Isometry and Gauge Equivariant Convolutions on Riemannian Manifolds
Motivated by the vast success of deep convolutional networks, there is a
great interest in generalizing convolutions to non-Euclidean manifolds. A major
complication in comparison to flat spaces is that it is unclear in which
alignment a convolution kernel should be applied on a manifold. The underlying
reason for this ambiguity is that general manifolds do not come with a
canonical choice of reference frames (gauge). Kernels and features therefore
have to be expressed relative to arbitrary coordinates. We argue that the
particular choice of coordinatization should not affect a network's inference
-- it should be coordinate independent. A simultaneous demand for coordinate
independence and weight sharing is shown to result in a requirement on the
network to be equivariant under local gauge transformations (changes of local
reference frames). The ambiguity of reference frames depends thereby on the
G-structure of the manifold, such that the necessary level of gauge
equivariance is prescribed by the corresponding structure group G. Coordinate
independent convolutions are proven to be equivariant w.r.t. those isometries
that are symmetries of the G-structure. The resulting theory is formulated in a
coordinate free fashion in terms of fiber bundles. To exemplify the design of
coordinate independent convolutions, we implement a convolutional network on
the M\"obius strip. The generality of our differential geometric formulation of
convolutional networks is demonstrated by an extensive literature review which
explains a large number of Euclidean CNNs, spherical CNNs and CNNs on general
surfaces as specific instances of coordinate independent convolutions.Comment: The implementation of orientation independent M\"obius convolutions
is publicly available at https://github.com/mauriceweiler/MobiusCNN