mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

UNIT-DDPM: UNpaired Image Translation with Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models

arXiv 2104.05358 ↗First posted 12 Apr 2021cs.CV cs.LG eess.IVcited by 133

On the map: Diffusion models → Diffusion foundations and sampling

Abstract (arXiv)

We propose a novel unpaired image-to-image translation method that uses denoising diffusion probabilistic models without requiring adversarial training. Our method, UNpaired Image Translation with Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models (UNIT-DDPM), trains a generative model to infer the joint distribution of images over both domains as a Markov chain by minimising a denoising score matching objective conditioned on the other domain. In particular, we update both domain translation models simultaneously, and we generate target domain images by a denoising Markov Chain Monte Carlo approach that is conditioned on the input source domain images, based on Langevin dynamics. Our approach provides stable model training for image-to-image translation and generates high-quality image outputs. This enables state-of-the-art Fr'echet Inception Distance (FID) performance on several public datasets, including both colour and multispectral imagery, significantly outperforming the contemporary adversarial image-to-image translation methods.

Key facts. Cited by 133 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Diffusion foundations and sampling, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 31 of its 47 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 12 Apr 2021.

Builds on

31 of 47 references.

Closest ancestors · 3

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2021Improved Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models18 Feb
  2. 2020Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models6 Oct
  3. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models19 Jun

Other references · 28

  1. 2017Attention Is All You Needcited by 59,932
  2. 2015Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognitioncited by 51,809
  3. 2014Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimizationcited by 36,960
  4. 2015U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentationcited by 19,604
  5. 2015Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamicscited by 7,005
  6. 2015Batch Normalization: Accelerating Deep Network Training by Reducing Internal Covariate Shiftcited by 6,979
  7. 2016Image-to-Image Translation with Conditional Adversarial Networkscited by 4,510
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16 more
  1. 2018Group Normalizationcited by 1,514
  2. 2014NICE: Non-linear Independent Components Estimationcited by 1,052
  3. 2018Multimodal Unsupervised Image-to-Image Translationcited by 795
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  5. 2017Unpaired Image-to-Image Translation using Cycle-Consistent Adversarial Networkscited by 707
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  8. 2018Diverse Image-to-Image Translation via Disentangled Representationscited by 296
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  12. 2017Image to Image Translation for Domain Adaptationcited by 171
  13. 2016Variational Autoencoder for Deep Learning of Images, Labels and Captionscited by 137
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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2021: 8; 2022: 31; 2023: 32; 2024: 29; 2025: 23; 2026: 10.

133 papers.

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  1. 2023Align your Latents: High-Resolution Video Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 1,465
  2. 2021Palette: Image-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 1,296
  3. 2022Imagic: Text-Based Real Image Editing with Diffusion Modelscited by 1,172
  4. 2022Diffusion Models in Vision: A Surveycited by 1,008
  5. 2022Analytic-DPM: an Analytic Estimate of the Optimal Reverse Variance in Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 331
  6. 2023VideoFusion: Decomposed Diffusion Models for High-Quality Video Generationcited by 330
  7. 2021Come-Closer-Diffuse-Faster: Accelerating Conditional Diffusion Models for Inverse Problems through Stochastic Contractioncited by 306
  8. 2023Q-Diffusion: Quantizing Diffusion Modelscited by 266
  9. 2022Post-training Quantization on Diffusion Modelscited by 262
  10. 2022Diffusion Models for Medical Anomaly Detectioncited by 231
  11. 2021Score-Based Generative Modeling with Critically-Damped Langevin Diffusioncited by 230
  12. 2021Gotta Go Fast When Generating Data with Score-Based Modelscited by 218
38 more
  1. 2022Dual Diffusion Implicit Bridges for Image-to-Image Translationcited by 212
  2. 2024Diffusion Model-Based Image Editing: A Surveycited by 212
  3. 2021Diffusion Models for Implicit Image Segmentation Ensemblescited by 198
  4. 2023Structural Pruning for Diffusion Modelscited by 193
  5. 2022Unsupervised Medical Image Translation with Adversarial Diffusion Modelscited by 191
  6. 2022EGSDE: Unpaired Image-to-Image Translation via Energy-Guided Stochastic Differential Equationscited by 172
  7. 2022A Physics-informed Diffusion Model for High-fidelity Flow Field Reconstructioncited by 150
  8. 2022Diffusion-based Image Translation using Disentangled Style and Content Representationcited by 148
  9. 2022Semantic Image Synthesis via Diffusion Modelscited by 131
  10. 2022GENIE: Higher-Order Denoising Diffusion Solverscited by 127
  11. 2022Score-Based Generative Models Detect Manifoldscited by 121
  12. 2022Differentially Private Diffusion Modelscited by 118
  13. 2024One-Step Image Translation with Text-to-Image Modelscited by 111
  14. 2022Exploring Chemical Space with Score-based Out-of-distribution Generationcited by 95
  15. 2023TexFusion: Synthesizing 3D Textures with Text-Guided Image Diffusion Modelscited by 86
  16. 2022Estimating the Optimal Covariance with Imperfect Mean in Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 83
  17. 2021Unleashing Transformers: Parallel Token Prediction with Discrete Absorbing Diffusion for Fast High-Resolution Image Generation from Vector-Quantized Codescited by 71
  18. 2021DiffuseMorph: Unsupervised Deformable Image Registration Using Diffusion Modelcited by 57
  19. 2023Relightful Harmonization: Lighting-aware Portrait Background Replacementcited by 56
  20. 2023FontDiffuser: One-Shot Font Generation via Denoising Diffusion with Multi-Scale Content Aggregation and Style Contrastive Learningcited by 48
  21. 2023WaveDM: Wavelet-Based Diffusion Models for Image Restorationcited by 46
  22. 2022Maximum Likelihood Training of Implicit Nonlinear Diffusion Modelscited by 42
  23. 2022Deep Equilibrium Approaches to Diffusion Modelscited by 42
  24. 2022SinDiffusion: Learning a Diffusion Model from a Single Natural Imagecited by 42
  25. 2023UniBrain: Unify Image Reconstruction and Captioning All in One Diffusion Model from Human Brain Activitycited by 42
  26. 2023CycleNet: Rethinking Cycle Consistency in Text-Guided Diffusion for Image Manipulationcited by 41
  27. 2022Diff-Font: Diffusion Model for Robust One-Shot Font Generationcited by 40
  28. 2023Highly Personalized Text Embedding for Image Manipulation by Stable Diffusioncited by 39
  29. 2022DeS3: Adaptive Attention-driven Self and Soft Shadow Removal using ViT Similaritycited by 37
  30. 2022Enhancing Diffusion-Based Image Synthesis with Robust Classifier Guidancecited by 33
  31. 2023Debias Coarsely, Sample Conditionally: Statistical Downscaling through Optimal Transport and Probabilistic Diffusion Modelscited by 33
  32. 2023Unbalancedness in Neural Monge Maps Improves Unpaired Domain Translationcited by 32
  33. 2024MatFusion: A Generative Diffusion Model for SVBRDF Capturecited by 31
  34. 2023Probabilistic Adaptation of Text-to-Video Modelscited by 29
  35. 2023Where to Diffuse, How to Diffuse, and How to Get Back: Automated Learning for Multivariate Diffusionscited by 27
  36. 2022Dynamic Dual-Output Diffusion Modelscited by 25
  37. 2022The Swiss Army Knife for Image-to-Image Translation: Multi-Task Diffusion Modelscited by 24
  38. 2024AsyncDiff: Parallelizing Diffusion Models by Asynchronous Denoisingcited by 22

50 most cited of 133 All 133 (JSON)

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  2. 2025A Diffusion Model Translator for Efficient Image-to-Image Translation
  3. 2023Improving Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models via Exploiting Shared Representations
  4. 2022Few-shot Image Generation with Diffusion Models
  5. 2023UDPM: Upsampling Diffusion Probabilistic Models
  6. 2023DomainStudio: Fine-Tuning Diffusion Models for Domain-Driven Image Generation using Limited Data
  7. 2023The Missing U for Efficient Diffusion Models
  8. 2023On Inference Stability for Diffusion Models