The Path Between Slices Is Part of the Model
TL;DR for operators If a reconstruction system has observations at two time points or tissue depths, improving the match between those endpoints is only part of the problem. TP-DATE shows that the trajectory used to connect them can independently affect reconstruction quality. The authors hold the static quadratic-form optimal transport coupling fixed and change only the conditional path. Replacing TP-DATE’s interaction-aware trajectory with straight interpolation worsens every reported mean metric on both Mouse brain and ARTISTA. That isolates a practical point: the path carries modeling information that is not already contained in the endpoint assignment. ...