# Scaling Up Deep Clustering Methods Beyond ImageNet-1K

Source: [Scaling Up Deep Clustering Methods Beyond ImageNet-1K](<https://www.sota2.com/research/paper/68fa73751e209131cea5ca5b>)

Collection index: [llms.txt](<https://www.sota2.com/research/llms.txt>)

Data updated: 2025-10-26T02:50:15.439Z

Authors: Nikolas Adaloglou, Felix Michels, Kaspar Senft, Diana Petrusheva, Markus Kollmann

Published: 2024-06-03T11:13:27.000Z

## Abstract

Deep image clustering methods are typically evaluated on small-scale balanced classification datasets while feature-based $k$-means has been applied on proprietary billion-scale datasets. In this work, we explore the performance of feature-based deep clustering approaches on large-scale benchmarks whilst disentangling the impact of the following data-related factors: i) class imbalance, ii) class granularity, iii) easy-to-recognize classes, and iv) the ability to capture multiple classes. Consequently, we develop multiple new benchmarks based on ImageNet21K. Our experimental analysis reveals that feature-based $k$-means is often unfairly evaluated on balanced datasets. However, deep clustering methods outperform $k$-means across most large-scale benchmarks. Interestingly, $k$-means underperforms on easy-to-classify benchmarks by large margins. The performance gap, however, diminishes on the highest data regimes such as ImageNet21K. Finally, we find that non-primary cluster predictions capture meaningful classes (i.e. coarser classes).

## Recorded benchmark results

A research result applies to its stated dataset, split, metric and evaluation configuration. Compare like-for-like settings, preserve the metric's unit and direction, and distinguish paper-reported results from independent reproduction. The best result recorded here is not a claim of exhaustive, current global coverage.

## Original sources and implementation

[Original paper](<https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.01203>)

[PDF](<https://arxiv.org/pdf/2406.01203.pdf>)