Single Image Super-Resolution via Bivariate `A Trous Wavelet Diffusion
This work provides an incremental improvement in single image super-resolution for computer vision researchers and practitioners by enhancing the quality of high-frequency detail recovery.
This paper addresses the challenge of recovering high-frequency structures in single image super-resolution without introducing artifacts. The authors introduce BATDiff, an unsupervised bivariate `a trous wavelet diffusion model that uses structured cross-scale guidance to improve high-frequency coherence and reduce mismatch artifacts, resulting in sharper and more structurally consistent reconstructions compared to existing baselines.
The effectiveness of super resolution (SR) models hinges on their ability to recover high frequency structure without introducing artifacts. Diffusion based approaches have recently advanced the state of the art in SR. However, most diffusion based SR pipelines operate purely in the spatial domain, which may yield high frequency details that are not well supported by the underlying low resolution evidence. On the other hand, unlike supervised SR models that may inject dataset specific textures, single image SR relies primarily on internal image statistics and can therefore be less prone to dataset-driven hallucinations; nevertheless, ambiguity in the LR observation can still lead to inconsistent high frequency details. To tackle this problem, we introduce BATDiff, an unsupervised Bivariate A trous Wavelet Diffusion model designed to provide structured cross scale guidance during the generative process. BATDiff employs an a Trous wavelet transform that constructs an undecimated multiscale representation in which high frequency components are progressively revealed while the full spatial resolution is preserved. As the core inference mechanism, BATDiff includes a bivariate cross scale module that models parent child dependencies between adjacent scales. It improves high frequency coherence and reduces mismatch artifacts in diffusion based SR. Experiments on standard benchmarks demonstrate that BATDiff produces sharper and more structurally consistent reconstructions than existing diffusion and non diffusion baselines, achieving improvements in fidelity and perceptual quality.