Multi-scale adversarial diffusion network for image super-resolution

Abstract Image super-resolution methods based on diffusion models have achieved remarkable success, but they still suffer from two significant limitations. On the one hand, this algorithm requires a large number of denoising steps in the sampling process, which seriously limits the inference speed o...

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Main Authors: Yanli Shi, Xianhe Zhang, Yi Jia, Jinxing Zhao
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2025-04-01
Series:Scientific Reports
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-96185-2
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author Yanli Shi
Xianhe Zhang
Yi Jia
Jinxing Zhao
author_facet Yanli Shi
Xianhe Zhang
Yi Jia
Jinxing Zhao
author_sort Yanli Shi
collection DOAJ
description Abstract Image super-resolution methods based on diffusion models have achieved remarkable success, but they still suffer from two significant limitations. On the one hand, this algorithm requires a large number of denoising steps in the sampling process, which seriously limits the inference speed of the model. On the other hand, although the existing methods can generate diverse and detailed samples, they tend to perform unsatisfactorily on fidelity metrics such as the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR). To address these challenges, this paper proposes a Multi-Scale Adversarial Diffusion Network (MSADN) based on super-resolution. A time-dependent discriminator is introduced to model complex multimodal distributions, significantly improving the efficiency of single-step sampling. A Multi-Scale Generation Guidance (MSGG) module is designed to assist the model in learning feature information at different scales from low-resolution images, thereby enhancing its feature representation capability. Furthermore, to mitigate blurring artifacts introduced during the denoising process, a high-frequency loss function is proposed, targeting the residuals of high-frequency features between images. This ensures that the predicted images exhibit more realistic texture details. Experimental results indicate that, compared with other diffusion-based super-resolution methods, our approach provides a faster inference speed and has superior performance on benchmark datasets.
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spelling doaj-art-01cb0dd038b3430a9e7eddbe3f61d7c52025-08-20T02:08:09ZengNature PortfolioScientific Reports2045-23222025-04-0115111710.1038/s41598-025-96185-2Multi-scale adversarial diffusion network for image super-resolutionYanli Shi0Xianhe Zhang1Yi Jia2Jinxing Zhao3College of Science, Jilin Institute of Chemical TechnologyCollege of Information and Control Engineering, Jilin Institute of Chemical TechnologyCollege of Information and Control Engineering, Jilin Institute of Chemical TechnologySchool of Mathematical Sciences, Inner Mongolia UniversityAbstract Image super-resolution methods based on diffusion models have achieved remarkable success, but they still suffer from two significant limitations. On the one hand, this algorithm requires a large number of denoising steps in the sampling process, which seriously limits the inference speed of the model. On the other hand, although the existing methods can generate diverse and detailed samples, they tend to perform unsatisfactorily on fidelity metrics such as the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR). To address these challenges, this paper proposes a Multi-Scale Adversarial Diffusion Network (MSADN) based on super-resolution. A time-dependent discriminator is introduced to model complex multimodal distributions, significantly improving the efficiency of single-step sampling. A Multi-Scale Generation Guidance (MSGG) module is designed to assist the model in learning feature information at different scales from low-resolution images, thereby enhancing its feature representation capability. Furthermore, to mitigate blurring artifacts introduced during the denoising process, a high-frequency loss function is proposed, targeting the residuals of high-frequency features between images. This ensures that the predicted images exhibit more realistic texture details. Experimental results indicate that, compared with other diffusion-based super-resolution methods, our approach provides a faster inference speed and has superior performance on benchmark datasets.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-96185-2
spellingShingle Yanli Shi
Xianhe Zhang
Yi Jia
Jinxing Zhao
Multi-scale adversarial diffusion network for image super-resolution
Scientific Reports
title Multi-scale adversarial diffusion network for image super-resolution
title_full Multi-scale adversarial diffusion network for image super-resolution
title_fullStr Multi-scale adversarial diffusion network for image super-resolution
title_full_unstemmed Multi-scale adversarial diffusion network for image super-resolution
title_short Multi-scale adversarial diffusion network for image super-resolution
title_sort multi scale adversarial diffusion network for image super resolution
url https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-96185-2
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AT xianhezhang multiscaleadversarialdiffusionnetworkforimagesuperresolution
AT yijia multiscaleadversarialdiffusionnetworkforimagesuperresolution
AT jinxingzhao multiscaleadversarialdiffusionnetworkforimagesuperresolution