# Activating Wider Areas in Image Super-Resolution

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.08330 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.08330/

## Key facts

- Cited by 10 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 57 of its 73 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 13 Mar 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 57)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01703/) (2019)
- [Swin Transformer: Hierarchical Vision Transformer using Shifted Windows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14030/) (2021)
- [Layer Normalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.06450/) (2016)
- [Squeeze-and-Excitation Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.01507/) (2017)
- [Mamba: Linear-Time Sequence Modeling with Selective State Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00752/) (2023)
- [A ConvNet for the 2020s](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.03545/) (2022)
- [Axiomatic Attribution for Deep Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.01365/) (2017)
- [CBAM: Convolutional Block Attention Module](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.06521/) (2018)
- [Efficiently Modeling Long Sequences with Structured State Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.00396/) (2021)
- [Non-local Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.07971/) (2017)
- [Photo-Realistic Single Image Super-Resolution Using a Generative Adversarial Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.04802/) (2016)
- [SwinIR: Image Restoration Using Swin Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.10257/) (2021)
- [Enhanced Deep Residual Networks for Single Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.02921/) (2017)
- [Image Super-Resolution Using Very Deep Residual Channel Attention Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.02758/) (2018)
- [ESRGAN: Enhanced Super-Resolution Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.00219/) (2018)
- [Real-Time Single Image and Video Super-Resolution Using an Efficient Sub-Pixel Convolutional Neural Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.05158/) (2016)
- [Vision Mamba: Efficient Visual Representation Learning with Bidirectional State Space Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.09417/) (2024)
- [CvT: Introducing Convolutions to Vision Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.15808/) (2021)
- [Revisiting Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data in Deep Learning Era](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.02968/) (2017)
- [Do Vision Transformers See Like Convolutional Neural Networks?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.08810/) (2021)
- [Exploring the Limits of Weakly Supervised Pretraining](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.00932/) (2018)
- [Do Better ImageNet Models Transfer Better?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.08974/) (2018)
- [Understanding the Effective Receptive Field in Deep Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1701.04128/) (2017)
- [MetaFormer Is Actually What You Need for Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.11418/) (2021)
- [Activating More Pixels in Image Super-Resolution Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.04437/) (2022)
- [On the Parameterization and Initialization of Diagonal State Space Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.11893/) (2022)
- [U-Mamba: Enhancing Long-range Dependency for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.04722/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 10 of 10)

- [State Space Model for New-Generation Network Alternative to Transformers: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.09516/) (2024)
- [Vision Mamba: A Comprehensive Survey and Taxonomy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.04404/) (2024)
- [A Survey on Visual Mamba](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.15956/) (2024)
- [Visual Mamba: A Survey and New Outlooks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.18861/) (2024)
- [Mamba in Vision: A Comprehensive Survey of Techniques and Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.03105/) (2024)
- [Hi-Mamba: Hierarchical Mamba for Efficient Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.10140/) (2024)
- [MambaCSR: Dual-Interleaved Scanning for Compressed Image Super-Resolution With SSMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.11758/) (2024)
- [EAMamba: Efficient All-Around Vision State Space Model for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.22246/) (2025)
- [From Prediction to Perfection: Introducing Refinement to Autoregressive Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.16324/) (2025)
- [Venturing into Uncharted Waters: The Navigation Compass from Transformer to Mamba](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.16722/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The prevalence of convolution neural networks (CNNs) and vision transformers (ViTs) has markedly revolutionized the area of single-image super-resolution (SISR). To further boost the SR performances, several techniques, such as residual learning and attention mechanism, are introduced, which can be largely attributed to a wider range of activated area, that is, the input pixels that strongly influence the SR results. However, the possibility of further improving SR performance through another versatile vision backbone remains an unresolved challenge. To address this issue, in this paper, we unleash the representation potential of the modern state space model, i.e., Vision Mamba (Vim), in the context of SISR. Specifically, we present three recipes for better utilization of Vim-based models: 1) Integration into a MetaFormer-style block; 2) Pre-training on a larger and broader dataset; 3) Employing complementary attention mechanism, upon which we introduce the MMA. The resulting network MMA is capable of finding the most relevant and representative input pixels to reconstruct the corresponding high-resolution images. Comprehensive experimental analysis reveals that MMA not only achieves competitive or even superior performance compared to state-of-the-art SISR methods but also maintains relatively low memory and computational overheads (e.g., +0.5 dB PSNR elevation on Manga109 dataset with 19.8 M parameters at the scale of 2). Furthermore, MMA proves its versatility in lightweight SR applications. Through this work, we aim to illuminate the potential applications of state space models in the broader realm of image processing rather than SISR, encouraging further exploration in this innovative direction.