mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Blurring Diffusion Models

arXiv 2209.05557 ↗First posted 12 Sep 2022cs.LG cs.CV stat.MLcited by 89

On the map: Diffusion models → Diffusion foundations and sampling

Abstract (arXiv)

Recently, Rissanen et al., (2022) have presented a new type of diffusion process for generative modeling based on heat dissipation, or blurring, as an alternative to isotropic Gaussian diffusion. Here, we show that blurring can equivalently be defined through a Gaussian diffusion process with non-isotropic noise. In making this connection, we bridge the gap between inverse heat dissipation and denoising diffusion, and we shed light on the inductive bias that results from this modeling choice. Finally, we propose a generalized class of diffusion models that offers the best of both standard Gaussian denoising diffusion and inverse heat dissipation, which we call Blurring Diffusion Models.

Key facts. Cited by 89 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Diffusion foundations and sampling, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 19 of its 21 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 12 Sep 2022.

Builds on

19 of 21 references.

Closest ancestors · 9

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2022Cold Diffusion: Inverting Arbitrary Image Transforms Without Noise19 Aug
  2. 2022Progressive Deblurring of Diffusion Models for Coarse-to-Fine Image Synthesis16 Jul
  3. 2022Subspace Diffusion Generative Models3 May
  4. 2021Variational Diffusion Models1 Jul
  5. 2021Cascaded Diffusion Models for High Fidelity Image Generation30 May
  6. 2021Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesis11 May
  7. 2021Improved Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models18 Feb
  8. 2020Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations26 Nov
  9. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models19 Jun

Other references · 10

  1. 2015Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamicscited by 7,005
  2. 2019Generative Modeling by Estimating Gradients of the Data Distributioncited by 4,067
  3. 2020DiffWave: A Versatile Diffusion Model for Audio Synthesiscited by 1,339
  4. 2022Denoising Diffusion Restoration Modelscited by 951
  5. 2022GeoDiff: a Geometric Diffusion Model for Molecular Conformation Generationcited by 511
  6. 2017DeblurGAN: Blind Motion Deblurring Using Conditional Adversarial Networkscited by 366
  7. 2021Deblurring via Stochastic Refinementcited by 248
  8. 2022Generative Modelling With Inverse Heat Dissipationcited by 164
  9. 2022Lossy Compression with Gaussian Diffusioncited by 87
  10. 2022Universal Speech Enhancement with Score-based Diffusioncited by 75

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2022: 5; 2023: 31; 2024: 17; 2025: 19; 2026: 17.

89 papers.

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  1. 2023PDE-Refiner: Achieving Accurate Long Rollouts with Neural PDE Solverscited by 205
  2. 2022DiffRF: Rendering-Guided 3D Radiance Field Diffusioncited by 204
  3. 2023Inversion by Direct Iteration: An Alternative to Denoising Diffusion for Image Restorationcited by 164
  4. 2022Improving Sample Quality of Diffusion Models Using Self-Attention Guidancecited by 151
  5. 2023Denoising Diffusion Samplerscited by 144
  6. 2024ConsistI2V: Enhancing Visual Consistency for Image-to-Video Generationcited by 130
  7. 2023DYffusion: A Dynamics-informed Diffusion Model for Spatiotemporal Forecastingcited by 105
  8. 2023Minimizing Trajectory Curvature of ODE-based Generative Modelscited by 87
  9. 2023Score-based Diffusion Models in Function Spacecited by 80
  10. 2023Relay Diffusion: Unifying diffusion process across resolutions for image synthesiscited by 78
  11. 2024Variational Flow Matching for Graph Generationcited by 78
  12. 2022Multiscale Structure Guided Diffusion for Image Deblurringcited by 76
38 more
  1. 2023Diffusion Models for Black-Box Optimizationcited by 75
  2. 2024A Survey on Diffusion Models for Time Series and Spatio-Temporal Datacited by 66
  3. 2023Consistent Diffusion Models: Mitigating Sampling Drift by Learning to be Consistentcited by 58
  4. 2023Diffusion Models With Learned Adaptive Noisecited by 50
  5. 2024Neural Flow Diffusion Models: Learnable Forward Process for Improved Diffusion Modellingcited by 43
  6. 2022f-DM: A Multi-stage Diffusion Model via Progressive Signal Transformationcited by 32
  7. 2022Spectral Diffusion Processescited by 24
  8. 2023∞-Diff: Infinite Resolution Diffusion with Subsampled Mollified Statescited by 21
  9. 2024Warped Diffusion: Solving Video Inverse Problems with Image Diffusion Modelscited by 21
  10. 2023Neural Diffusion Modelscited by 20
  11. 2023Beta Diffusioncited by 17
  12. 2023Improved Order Analysis and Design of Exponential Integrator for Diffusion Models Samplingcited by 16
  13. 2023Renormalizing Diffusion Modelscited by 16
  14. 2023DiffEnc: Variational Diffusion with a Learned Encodercited by 16
  15. 2023Learning to Jump: Thinning and Thickening Latent Counts for Generative Modelingcited by 15
  16. 2023DiracDiffusion: Denoising and Incremental Reconstruction with Assured Data-Consistencycited by 14
  17. 2023Star-Shaped Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 13
  18. 2023Generative Fractional Diffusion Modelscited by 12
  19. 2025Nonisotropic Gaussian Diffusion for Realistic 3D Human Motion Predictioncited by 12
  20. 2023Masked Diffusion as Self-supervised Representation Learnercited by 11
  21. 2023Diffusion Reflectance Map: Single-Image Stochastic Inverse Rendering of Illumination and Reflectancecited by 11
  22. 2023Geometric Neural Diffusion Processescited by 10
  23. 2025Generative diffusion model with inverse renormalization group flowscited by 10
  24. 2023Image generation with shortest path diffusioncited by 8
  25. 2024∞-Brush: Controllable Large Image Synthesis with Diffusion Models in Infinite Dimensionscited by 8
  26. 2025Smoothie: Smoothing Diffusion on Token Embeddings for Text Generationcited by 8
  27. 2025Finding Local Diffusion Schr"odinger Bridge using Kolmogorov-Arnold Networkcited by 7
  28. 2025Graph-Aware Diffusion for Signal Generationcited by 7
  29. 2023Restoration based Generative Modelscited by 6
  30. 2024PQD: Post-training Quantization for Efficient Diffusion Modelscited by 6
  31. 2025Diffusion-Sharpening: Fine-tuning Diffusion Models with Denoising Trajectory Sharpeningcited by 6
  32. 2025Whitened Score Diffusion: A Structured Prior for Imaging Inverse Problemscited by 6
  33. 2023Sequential Data Generation with Groupwise Diffusion Processcited by 5
  34. 2024Edge-preserving noise for diffusion modelscited by 5
  35. 2025DiffSpectra: Molecular Structure Elucidation from Spectra using Diffusion Modelscited by 5
  36. 2023One-Line-of-Code Data Mollification Improves Optimization of Likelihood-based Generative Modelscited by 4
  37. 2023Improving Denoising Diffusion Models via Simultaneous Estimation of Image and Noisecited by 4
  38. 2024GUD: Generation with Unified Diffusioncited by 4

50 most cited of 89 All 89 (JSON)

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2022Diffusion Models in Vision: A Survey
  2. 2026Dynamic Time Step Prediction in Inverse Heat Dissipation for Blur-Like Image Restoration Tasks
  3. 2022gDDIM: Generalized denoising diffusion implicit models
  4. 2022Score-based Denoising Diffusion with Non-Isotropic Gaussian Noise Models
  5. 2026A Tutorial on Diffusion Theory: From Differential Equations to Diffusion Models
  6. 2023Non-Denoising Forward-Time Diffusions
  7. 2020Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models
  8. 2021Non Gaussian Denoising Diffusion Models