Model reference · open weights

vit_base_patch16_dinov3_qkvb.lvd1689m

Embeddings timm Image embed 1 build Its own licence terms 140k dl/mo

vit_base_patch16_dinov3_qkvb.lvd1689m is an open-weight embedding model from timm. vit_base_patch16_dinov3_qkvb.lvd1689m (FP32) weighs 171 MB; the smallest configuration that runs it is RTX 3060 12 GB.

vit_base_patch16_dinov3_qkvb.lvd1689m is an image feature extraction model developed by timm. It is a ViT base variant with 86M parameters that was distilled from the DINOv3 ViT-7B model using the LVD-1689M dataset. The model operates on 256x256 pixel images and is distributed under a custom DINOv3 license.

Summary of the timm/vit_base_patch16_dinov3_qkvb.lvd1689m model card, 2026-10-01

What it is

Released bytimm
TypeEmbedding models
TaskImage embed
Parameters (lead)86M
Runs withtimm
Released2025-09-17
Popularity140k downloads / month
Weights171 MB (vit_base_patch16_dinov3_qkvb.lvd1689m (FP32), file size)
LicenceIts own licence terms

What it runs on

Memory and cards for vit_base_patch16_dinov3_qkvb.lvd1689m (FP32)

Weights 171 MB (file size) · overhead about 1.1 GB.

CardRunsCounted
memory
RTX 3060 12 GBfits11.6 GB
RTX 4060 Ti 16 GBfits15.4 GB
RTX 3090 24 GBfits23.4 GB
RTX 4090 24 GBfits23.4 GB
RTX 5090 32 GBfits31.0 GB
L40S 48 GBfits44.0 GB
A100 80 GBfits78.2 GB
H100 80 GBfits78.1 GB
RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell 96 GBfits93.8 GB
DGX Spark (GB10) 128 GB unifiedfits107 GB
H200 141 GBfits138 GB
B200 180 GBfits176 GB

Estimates, not measurements: the weights are the build's file size. No cache grows with use; a batch of inputs needs working memory of its own. Counted memory is 92 % of what CUDA reports for the card.

From the model card

What timm says about vit_base_patch16_dinov3_qkvb.lvd1689m

Read the model card

A DINOv3 ViT model image feature encoder. Distilled on LVD-1689M from the DINOv3 ViT-7B model.

Model Notes

  • The original model weights ended up with all QKV projection biases being zeroes. For timm, have disabled the QKV bias (qkv_bias=False) for the models and not loaded the zero weights. For some model sizes there are variants with qkvb in the name that have the bias enabled (qkv_bias=True), but zero, to match the behaviour of transformers and original models.
  • The original models keep RoPE periods as a persistent bfloat16 buffer. timm generates float32 periods at init. This results in some numerical differences, however the timm approach should be less problematic running on devices without bfloat16 support, and appears to work as well if not slightly better for fine-tuning. model.rope.periods = model.rope.periods.to(torch.bfloat16).to(torch.float32) will truncate the periods to bfloat16 and result in matching outputs.

Model Details

  • Model Type: Image Feature Encoder
  • Model Stats:
    • Params (M): 85.7
    • GMACs: 23.6
    • Activations (M): 34.1
    • Image size: 256 x 256
  • Original: https://github.com/facebookresearch/dinov3
  • License: DINOv3
  • Dataset: LVD-1689M
  • Papers:
    • DINOv3: https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.10104
    • An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale: https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.11929v2
    • PyTorch Image Models: https://github.com/huggingface/pytorch-image-models

Model Usage

Image Classification

from urllib.request import urlopen
from PIL import Image
import timm

img = Image.open(urlopen(
    'https://huggingface.co/datasets/huggingface/documentation-images/resolve/main/beignets-task-guide.png'
))

model = timm.create_model('vit_base_patch16_dinov3_qkvb.lvd1689m', pretrained=True)
model = model.eval()

# get model specific transforms (normalization, resize)
data_config = timm.data.resolve_model_data_config(model)
transforms = timm.data.create_transform(**data_config, is_training=False)

output = model(transforms(img).unsqueeze(0))  # unsqueeze single image into batch of 1

top5_probabilities, top5_class_indices = torch.topk(output.softmax(dim=1) * 100, k=5)

Feature Map Extraction

from urllib.request import urlopen
from PIL import Image
import timm

img = Image.open(urlopen(
    'https://huggingface.co/datasets/huggingface/documentation-images/resolve/main/beignets-task-guide.png'
))

model = timm.create_model(
    'vit_base_patch16_dinov3_qkvb.lvd1689m',
    pretrained=True,
    features_only=True,
)
model = model.eval()

# get model specific transforms (normalization, resize)
data_config = timm.data.resolve_model_data_config(model)
transforms = timm.data.create_transform(**data_config, is_training=False)

output = model(transforms(img).unsqueeze(0))  # unsqueeze single image into batch of 1

for o in output:
    # print shape of each feature map in output
    # e.g.:
    #  torch.Size([1, 768, 16, 16])
    #  torch.Size([1, 768, 16, 16])
    #  torch.Size([1, 768, 16, 16])

    print(o.shape)

Image Embeddings

from urllib.request import urlopen
from PIL import Image
import timm

img = Image.open(urlopen(
    'https://huggingface.co/datasets/huggingface/documentation-images/resolve/main/beignets-task-guide.png'
))

model = timm.create_model(
    'vit_base_patch16_dinov3_qkvb.lvd1689m',
    pretrained=True,
    num_classes=0,  # remove classifier nn.Linear
)
model = model.eval()

# get model specific transforms (normalization, resize)
data_config = timm.data.resolve_model_data_config(model)
transforms = timm.data.create_transform(**data_config, is_training=False)

output = model(transforms(img).unsqueeze(0))  # output is (batch_size, num_features) shaped tensor

# or equivalently (without needing to set num_classes=0)

output = model.forward_features(transforms(img).unsqueeze(0))
# output is unpooled, a (1, 261, 768) shaped tensor

output = model.forward_head(output, pre_logits=True)
# output is a (1, num_features) shaped tensor

Model Comparison

See the associated paper for details on the evaluation protocols

Results for ViT backbones pretrained (or distilled) on web (LVD-1689M)

ModelIN-ReaLIN-RObj.NetOx.-HADE20kNYU↓DAVISNAVISPair
Global TasksDense Tasks
DINOv3 ViT-S/1687.060.450.949.547.00.40372.756.350.4
DINOv3 ViT-S+/1688.068.854.650.048.80.39975.557.155.2
DINOv3 ViT-B/1689.376.764.158.551.80.37377.258.857.2
DINOv3 ViT-L/1690.288.174.863.154.90.35279.962.361.3
DINOv3 ViT-H+/1690.390.078.664.554.80.35279.363.356.3
DINOv3 ViT-7B/1690.491.191.172.855.90.30979.764.458.7

Results for ConvNeXt backbones distilled on web (LVD-1689M)

ModelIN-ReaL @256pxIN-ReaL @512pxIN-R @256pxIN-R @512pxObj.Net @256pxObj.Net @512pxADE20kNYU↓
Global TasksDense Tasks
DINOv3 ConvNeXt Tiny86.687.773.774.152.658.742.70.448
DINOv3 ConvNeXt Small87.988.773.774.152.658.744.80.432
DINOv3 ConvNeXt Base88.589.277.278.256.261.346.30.420
DINOv3 ConvNeXt Large88.989.481.382.459.365.247.80.403

Results for ViT backbones pretrained (or distilled) on satellite (SAT-493M)

(GEO-Bench) Classification

| Model | m-BEnet | m-brick-kiln | m-eurosat | m-forestnet | m-pv4ger | m-so2sat | mean | |-------|---------|--------------|-----------|-------------|----------|---------

Quoted from the model card on Hugging Face — the full card is behind the Hugging Face link above.

How it works

How embedding models work

Your textsentence / documentEncodermaps meaningVectorlist of numbersAn embedding model turns text into a vector, so similar meanings sit close together — the basis of search and RAG.
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