A Generic Visualization Approach for Convolutional Neural Networks

Abstract: Retrieval networks are essential for searching and indexing. Compared to classification networks, attention visualization for retrieval networks is hardly studied. We formulate attention visualization as a constrained optimization problem. We leverage the unit L2-Norm constraint as an attention filter (L2-CAF) to localize attention in both classification and retrieval networks. Unlike recent literature, our approach requires neither architectural changes nor fine-tuning. Thus, a pre-trained network's performance is never undermined L2-CAF is quantitatively evaluated using weakly supervised object localization. State-of-the-art results are achieved on classification networks. For retrieval networks, significant improvement margins are achieved over a Grad-CAM baseline. Qualitative evaluation demonstrates how the L2-CAF visualizes attention per frame for a recurrent retrieval network. Further ablation studies highlight the computational cost of our approach and compare L2-CAF with other feasible alternatives. Code available at https://bit.ly/3iDBLFv