README.md

---
title: Demo of Encoder-Free VLM Trained for $100
emoji: 🖼️
colorFrom: indigo
colorTo: pink
sdk: gradio
sdk_version: 5.49.1
app_file: app.py
pinned: false
license: apache-2.0
short_description: Ask questions about images and get answers instantly
---

# Encoder-Free VLM Demo

An **encoder-free** vision-language model: there is no pretrained vision
encoder. A learned patch embedder splits a 512×512 image into 32×32 patches and
projects them directly into the hidden space of
[Qwen3-1.7B](https://huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen3-1.7B). The projected patch
embeddings are spliced into `<|image|>` placeholder positions and the decoder
generates from `inputs_embeds`.

This Space serves the **best checkpoint** trained on the
**DenseFusion-1M + ShareGPT4V** data mix.

Upload a single image, ask a question, and the model streams a response. The
demo is single-image and stateless — each turn is a fresh conversation.

Inspired by the
[SmolVLM-256M-Demo](https://huggingface.co/spaces/HuggingFaceTB/SmolVLM-256M-Demo)
Space.