  We present Neural Space-filling Curves (SFCs), a data-driven approach to
infer a context-based scan order for a set of images. Linear ordering of pixels
forms the basis for many applications such as video scrambling, compression,
and auto-regressive models that are used in generative modeling for images.
Existing algorithms resort to a fixed scanning algorithm such as Raster scan or
Hilbert scan. Instead, our work learns a spatially coherent linear ordering of
pixels from the dataset of images using a graph-based neural network. The
resulting Neural SFC is optimized for an objective suitable for the downstream
task when the image is traversed along with the scan line order. We show the
advantage of using Neural SFCs in downstream applications such as image
compression. Code and additional results will be made available at
https://hywang66.github.io/publication/neuralsfc.
