# Spatially-Variant Degradation Model for Dataset-free Super-resolution

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.08252 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.08252/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 26 of its 45 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 Jul 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 26 of 26)

- [Image Super-Resolution Using Very Deep Residual Channel Attention Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.02758/) (2018)
- [Deep Image Prior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.10925/) (2017)
- [Real-ESRGAN: Training Real-World Blind Super-Resolution with Pure Synthetic Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.10833/) (2021)
- [Accurate Image Super-Resolution Using Very Deep Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.04587/) (2015)
- [Designing a Practical Degradation Model for Deep Blind Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14006/) (2021)
- [Recovering Realistic Texture in Image Super-resolution by Deep Spatial Feature Transform](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.02815/) (2018)
- [Sketch-based Manga Retrieval using Manga109 Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1510.04389/) (2015)
- ["Zero-Shot" Super-Resolution using Deep Internal Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.06087/) (2017)
- [MemNet: A Persistent Memory Network for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.02209/) (2017)
- [Lightweight Image Super-Resolution with Information Multi-distillation Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.11856/) (2019)
- [Transformer for Single Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.11084/) (2021)
- [Fast and Accurate Image Super-Resolution with Deep Laplacian Pyramid Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.01992/) (2017)
- [Frequency Separation for Real-World Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.07850/) (2019)
- [Neural Blind Deconvolution Using Deep Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.02197/) (2019)
- [LAPAR: Linearly-Assembled Pixel-Adaptive Regression Network for Single Image Super-Resolution and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.10422/) (2021)
- [Intriguing Findings of Frequency Selection for Image Deblurring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.11745/) (2021)
- [Flow-based Kernel Prior with Application to Blind Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.15977/) (2021)
- [Unpaired Image Super-Resolution using Pseudo-Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.11397/) (2020)
- [Mutual Affine Network for Spatially Variant Kernel Estimation in Blind Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.05302/) (2021)
- [Non-local Meets Global: An Iterative Paradigm for Hyperspectral Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.12921/) (2020)
- [KOALAnet: Blind Super-Resolution using Kernel-Oriented Adaptive Local Adjustment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.08103/) (2020)
- [MM-RealSR: Metric Learning based Interactive Modulation for Real-World Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.05065/) (2022)
- [Blind Image Super-resolution with Elaborate Degradation Modeling on Noise and Kernel](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.00986/) (2021)
- [Learning Dynamic Generator Model by Alternating Back-Propagation Through Time](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.10587/) (2018)
- [Better "CMOS" Produces Clearer Images: Learning Space-Variant Blur Estimation for Blind Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.03542/) (2023)
- [Improved Anisotropic Gaussian Filters](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.13278/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Blind Video Super-Resolution based on Implicit Kernels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.07856/) (2025)
- [DeepRFTv2: Kernel-level Learning for Image Deblurring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.21132/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

This paper focuses on the dataset-free Blind Image Super-Resolution (BISR). Unlike existing dataset-free BISR methods that focus on obtaining a degradation kernel for the entire image, we are the first to explicitly design a spatially-variant degradation model for each pixel. Our method also benefits from having a significantly smaller number of learnable parameters compared to data-driven spatially-variant BISR methods. Concretely, each pixel's degradation kernel is expressed as a linear combination of a learnable dictionary composed of a small number of spatially-variant atom kernels. The coefficient matrices of the atom degradation kernels are derived using membership functions of fuzzy set theory. We construct a novel Probabilistic BISR model with tailored likelihood function and prior terms. Subsequently, we employ the Monte Carlo EM algorithm to infer the degradation kernels for each pixel. Our method achieves a significant improvement over other state-of-the-art BISR methods, with an average improvement of 1 dB (2x).Code will be released at https://github.com/shaojieguoECNU/SVDSR.
