transform module
scipy.spatial.transform: Differentiable Framework-Agnostic 3D Transformations in Python
Schuck, Martin, von Rohr, Alexander, Schoellig, Angela P.
Three-dimensional rigid-body transforms, i.e. rotations and translations, are central to modern differentiable machine learning pipelines in robotics, vision, and simulation. However, numerically robust and mathematically correct implementations, particularly on SO(3), are error-prone due to issues such as axis conventions, normalizations, composition consistency and subtle errors that only appear in edge cases. SciPy's spatial$.$transform module is a rigorously tested Python implementation. However, it historically only supported NumPy, limiting adoption in GPU-accelerated and autodiff-based workflows. We present a complete overhaul of SciPy's spatial$.$transform functionality that makes it compatible with any array library implementing the Python array API, including JAX, PyTorch, and CuPy. The revised implementation preserves the established SciPy interface while enabling GPU/TPU execution, JIT compilation, vectorized batching, and differentiation via native autodiff of the chosen backend. We demonstrate how this foundation supports differentiable scientific computing through two case studies: (i) scalability of 3D transforms and rotations and (ii) a JAX drone simulation that leverages SciPy's Rotation for accurate integration of rotational dynamics. Our contributions have been merged into SciPy main and will ship in the next release, providing a framework-agnostic, production-grade basis for 3D spatial math in differentiable systems and ML.
AGATE: Stealthy Black-box Watermarking for Multimodal Model Copyright Protection
Gao, Jianbo, Gai, Keke, Yu, Jing, Zhu, Liehuang, Wu, Qi
Recent advancement in large-scale Artificial Intelligence (AI) models offering multimodal services have become foundational in AI systems, making them prime targets for model theft. Existing methods select Out-of-Distribution (OoD) data as backdoor watermarks and retrain the original model for copyright protection. However, existing methods are susceptible to malicious detection and forgery by adversaries, resulting in watermark evasion. In this work, we propose Model-\underline{ag}nostic Black-box Backdoor W\underline{ate}rmarking Framework (AGATE) to address stealthiness and robustness challenges in multimodal model copyright protection. Specifically, we propose an adversarial trigger generation method to generate stealthy adversarial triggers from ordinary dataset, providing visual fidelity while inducing semantic shifts. To alleviate the issue of anomaly detection among model outputs, we propose a post-transform module to correct the model output by narrowing the distance between adversarial trigger image embedding and text embedding. Subsequently, a two-phase watermark verification is proposed to judge whether the current model infringes by comparing the two results with and without the transform module. Consequently, we consistently outperform state-of-the-art methods across five datasets in the downstream tasks of multimodal image-text retrieval and image classification. Additionally, we validated the robustness of AGATE under two adversarial attack scenarios.
Modular approach to data preprocessing in ALOHA and application to a smart industry use case
Chesta, Cristina, Rinelli, Luca
Applications in the smart industry domain, such as interaction with collaborative robots using vocal commands or machine vision systems often requires the deployment of deep learning algorithms on heterogeneous low power computing platforms. The availability of software tools and frameworks to automatize different design steps can support the effective implementation of DL algorithms on embedded systems, reducing related effort and costs. One very important aspect for the acceptance of the framework, is its extensibility, i.e. the capability to accommodate different datasets and define customized preprocessing, without requiring advanced skills. The paper addresses a modular approach, integrated into the ALOHA tool flow, to support the data preprocessing and transformation pipeline. This is realized through customizable plugins and allows the easy extension of the tool flow to encompass new use cases. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach, we present some experimental results related to a keyword spotting use case and we outline possible extensions to different use cases.