Neural Sequence Transformation

Abstract

Monte Carlo integration is a technique for numerically estimating a definite integral by stochastically sampling its integrand. These samples can be averaged to make an improved estimate, and the progressive estimates form a sequence that converges to the integral value on the limit. Unfortunately, the sequence of Monte Carlo estimates converges at a rate of O(√n), where n denotes the sample count, effectively slowing down as more samples are drawn. To overcome this, we can apply sequence transformation, which transforms one converging sequence into another with the goal of accelerating the rate of convergence. However, analytically finding such a transformation for Monte Carlo estimates can be challenging, due to both the stochastic nature of the sequence, and the complexity of the integrand. In this paper, we propose to leverage neural networks to learn sequence transformations that improve the convergence of the progressive estimates of Monte Carlo integration. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method on several canonical 1D integration problems as well as applications in light transport simulation.

Publication
Computer Graphics Forum 40(7) (Proceedings of Pacific Graphics 2021)
Nobuyuki Umetani
Nobuyuki Umetani
Associate Professor

My research interests include interactive smart engineering design tool using physics simulation and machine learning.

Daniel Meister
Daniel Meister
JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowships for Research in Japan