# CHITNet: A Complementary to Harmonious Information Transfer Network for Infrared and Visible Image Fusion

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.06118 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.06118/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 12 of its 73 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 12 Sep 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 12 of 12)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [Target-aware Dual Adversarial Learning and a Multi-scenario Multi-Modality Benchmark to Fuse Infrared and Visible for Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.16220/) (2022)
- [LLVIP: A Visible-infrared Paired Dataset for Low-light Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.10831/) (2021)
- [Residual Dense Network for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.10477/) (2018)
- [DenseFuse: A Fusion Approach to Infrared and Visible Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.08361/) (2018)
- [RFN-Nest: An end-to-end residual fusion network for infrared and visible images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.04286/) (2021)
- [Equivariant Multi-Modality Image Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.11443/) (2023)
- [LRRNet: A Novel Representation Learning Guided Fusion Network for Infrared and Visible Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.05172/) (2023)
- [Unsupervised Misaligned Infrared and Visible Image Fusion via Cross-Modality Image Generation and Registration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11876/) (2022)
- [NestFuse: An Infrared and Visible Image Fusion Architecture based on Nest Connection and Spatial/Channel Attention Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.00328/) (2020)
- [Infrared and Visible Image Fusion using a Deep Learning Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.06992/) (2018)

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Infrared-Assisted Single-Stage Framework for Joint Restoration and Fusion of Visible and Infrared Images under Hazy Conditions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.12586/) (2024)
- [Causality-Driven Infrared and Visible Image Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.20830/) (2025)
- [MAFS: Masked Autoencoder for Infrared-Visible Image Fusion and Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.11817/) (2025)
- [Missing No More: Dictionary-Guided Cross-Modal Image Fusion under Missing Infrared](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.08018/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Current infrared and visible image fusion (IVIF) methods go to great lengths to excavate complementary features and design complex fusion strategies, which is extremely challenging. To this end, we rethink the IVIF outside the box, proposing a complementary to harmonious information transfer network (CHITNet). It reasonably transfers complementary information into harmonious one, which integrates both the shared and complementary features from two modalities. Specifically, to skillfully sidestep aggregating complementary information in IVIF, we design a mutual information transfer (MIT) module to mutually represent features from two modalities, roughly transferring complementary information into harmonious one. Then, a harmonious information acquisition supervised by source image (HIASSI) module is devised to further ensure the complementary to harmonious information transfer after MIT. Meanwhile, we also propose a structure information preservation (SIP) module to guarantee that the edge structure information of the source images can be transferred to the fusion results. Moreover, a mutual promotion training paradigm with interaction loss is adopted to facilitate better collaboration among MIT, HIASSI and SIP. In this way, the proposed method is able to generate fused images with higher qualities. Extensive experimental results demonstrate the superiority of CHITNet over state-of-the-art algorithms in terms of visual quality and quantitative evaluations.