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arXiv · 2508.09691

PaCo-FR: Patch-Pixel Aligned End-to-End Codebook Learning for Facial Representation Pre-training

Yin Xie·Zhichao Chen·Zeyu Xiao·Yongle Zhao·Xiang An·Kaicheng Yang·Zimin Ran·Jia Guo·Ziyong Feng·Jiankang Deng
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Abstract

Facial representation pre-training is crucial for tasks like facial recognition, expression analysis, and virtual reality. However, existing methods face three key challenges: (1) failing to capture distinct facial features and fine-grained semantics, (2) ignoring the spatial structure inherent to facial anatomy, and (3) inefficiently utilizing limited labeled data. To overcome these, we introduce PaCo-FR, an unsupervised framework that combines masked image modeling with patch-pixel alignment. Our approach integrates three innovative components: (1) a structured masking strategy that preserves spatial coherence by aligning with semantically meaningful facial regions, (2) a novel patch-based codebook that enhances feature discrimination with multiple candidate tokens, and (3) spatial consistency constraints that preserve geometric relationships between facial components. PaCo-FR achieves state-of-the-art performance across several facial analysis tasks with just 2 million unlabeled images for pre-training. Our method demonstrates significant improvements, particularly in scenarios with varying poses, occlusions, and lighting conditions. We believe this work advances facial representation learning and offers a scalable, efficient solution that reduces reliance on expensive annotated datasets, driving more effective facial analysis systems.

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Yin Xie, Zhichao Chen, Zeyu Xiao, Yongle Zhao, Xiang An, Kaicheng Yang, Zimin Ran, Jia Guo, Ziyong Feng, Jiankang Deng. 2025-08-13. PaCo-FR: Patch-Pixel Aligned End-to-End Codebook Learning for Facial Representation Pre-training. https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.09691

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