Papers › A Benchmark of Selected Algorithmic Differentiation Tools on Some Problems in Computer...

A Benchmark of Selected Algorithmic Differentiation Tools on Some Problems in Computer Vision and Machine Learning

26 Jul 2018arXiv:1807.10129archive 2025-07-28

Filip Šrajer, Zuzana Kukelova, Andrew Fitzgibbon

Algorithmic differentiation (AD) allows exact computation of derivatives given only an implementation of an objective function. Although many AD tools are available, a proper and efficient implementation of AD methods is not straightforward. The existing tools are often too different to allow for a general test suite. In this paper, we compare fifteen ways of computing derivatives including eleven automatic differentiation tools implementing various methods and written in various languages (C++, F#, MATLAB, Julia and Python), two symbolic differentiation tools, finite differences, and hand-derived computation. We look at three objective functions from computer vision and machine learning. These objectives are for the most part simple, in the sense that no iterative loops are involved, and conditional statements are encapsulated in functions such as {\tt abs} or {\tt logsumexp}. However, it is important for the success of algorithmic differentiation that such `simple' objective functions are handled efficiently, as so many problems in computer vision and machine learning are of this form. Of course, our results depend on programmer skill, and familiarity with the tools. However, we contend that this paper presents an important datapoint: a skilled programmer devoting roughly a week to each tool produced the timings we present. We have made our implementations available as open source to allow the community to replicate and update these benchmarks.

Code

Repository list and official/mentioned flags are the archive's, frozen 2025-07-28. Reachability, where shown, is from one Syntology probe window (2026-09-16 to 2026-09-18); repositories not probed show nothing. GitHub stars are not tracked.

Code Syntology ran Syntology

13 samples harvested; 1 ran; 0 honoured the contract we drafted; 12 have no recorded run. Read from Syntology's graph 2026-09-24; that is when this build read the record, not when the samples ran.

Licence: 12 of the 13 samples are pointer only, meaning Syntology does not serve that copy's text. This page shows no code text for any sample; each one links to its file in the repository.

Harvested from 2 repositories linked to this paper, official or community; each sample names its own and says which. “Ran” means the sample executed on a synthesized input. It does not mean the output is correct, and nothing here reproduces the paper's results. “Honoured” and “violated” refer to a contract Syntology drafted from the code itself; “our draft was wrong” and “fixture could not drive it” are failures of Syntology's instrument, not of the code.

Each sample ends with its code_sha256, Syntology's identity for that exact code. An agent fetches the stored sample with Syntology's MCP tool get_code(code_sha256="…") (how to connect); click an identity to copy that call.

Repository labels, per sample. official repository: The archive marks this repository official for the paper. named in the paper: The archive records that the paper mentions this repository; it is not marked official. community (archive-listed): In the archive's code links for this paper, not marked official and not recorded as mentioned in the paper. found in paper text by Syntology: Syntology found this repository in the paper's own text; whether it is the authors' implementation is not asserted. community: Not in the archive's code links for this paper; a community repository Syntology harvested. Samples from a repository marked official are listed first. Licence labels name the repository's licence as recorded at harvest. “Pointer only” means Syntology does not serve that copy's text, for one of four reasons: no licence file was found; the licence was not identified; the licence is recorded as permissive but that copy's record is not marked cleared; or the licence is outside the permissive list Syntology serves text under (MIT, Apache-2.0, BSD and similar). Some licences outside that list permit redistribution, such as WTFPL, and GPL-3.0 under its conditions; they are simply not on the list. Hover a licence label for the reason. File links open the file on GitHub at the default branch, which may have changed since the harvest.

Tasks

Results from the paper archive 2025-07-28

No leaderboard rows for this paper in the archive.

Report a problem or propose a change · a person checks every report against the paper or source before anything changes; decisions are listed on /corrections