From Few-way to Many-way: Rethinking Few-shot Fine-grained Image Classification

Few-shot fine-grained image classification (FSFG) aims to recognize novel fine-grained categories from only a few labeled samples. Existing FSFG methods primarily focus on fine-grained feature extraction and modeling query–support interactions within training episodes containing a small number of classes. Relying on the episodic training strategy, these methods typically assume that the capabilities learned on training samples can directly transfer to evaluation episodes with a few novel classes (few-way). However, in more practical and challenging scenarios involving many novel classes (many-way), existing approaches lack a reliable and global characterization of the feature space, making it difficult for episodic adaptation alone to generalize effectively. In this paper, we pioneer a theoretical analysis of novel class behavior in FSFG and derive a class discriminative index bound. Guided by this analysis, we propose a novel SCEG method that incorporates Self and Collaborative feature extraction as well as Episodic and Global feature space optimization. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our method consistently and significantly outperforms existing methods under both conventional few-way and the new many-way settings.