# A Survey on Industrial Anomaly Synthesis

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.16412 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.16412/

## Key facts

- Cited by 7 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 41 of its 87 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 23 Feb 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 41)

- [Image-to-Image Translation with Conditional Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.07004/) (2016)
- [CutPaste: Self-Supervised Learning for Anomaly Detection and Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.04015/) (2021)
- [DRAEM -- A discriminatively trained reconstruction embedding for surface anomaly detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.07610/) (2021)
- [SPot-the-Difference Self-Supervised Pre-training for Anomaly Detection and Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.14315/) (2022)
- [A Unified Model for Multi-class Anomaly Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.03687/) (2022)
- [SimpleNet: A Simple Network for Image Anomaly Detection and Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.15140/) (2023)
- [VT-ADL: A Vision Transformer Network for Image Anomaly Detection and Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.10036/) (2021)
- [The MVTec 3D-AD Dataset for Unsupervised 3D Anomaly Detection and Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.09045/) (2021)
- [DeSTSeg: Segmentation Guided Denoising Student-Teacher for Anomaly Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.11317/) (2022)
- [Deep Industrial Image Anomaly Detection: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.11514/) (2023)
- [Segmentation-Based Deep-Learning Approach for Surface-Defect Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.08536/) (2019)
- [Real-IAD: A Real-World Multi-View Dataset for Benchmarking Versatile Industrial Anomaly Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.12580/) (2024)
- [Natural Synthetic Anomalies for Self-Supervised Anomaly Detection and Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.15222/) (2021)
- [RealNet: A Feature Selection Network with Realistic Synthetic Anomaly for Anomaly Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.05897/) (2024)
- [AnomalyDiffusion: Few-Shot Anomaly Image Generation with Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.05767/) (2023)
- [Mixed supervision for surface-defect detection: from weakly to fully supervised learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.06064/) (2021)
- [Inpainting Transformer for Anomaly Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.13897/) (2021)
- [DSR -- A dual subspace re-projection network for surface anomaly detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.01521/) (2022)
- [Defect-GAN: High-Fidelity Defect Synthesis for Automated Defect Inspection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.15158/) (2021)
- [A Unified Anomaly Synthesis Strategy with Gradient Ascent for Industrial Anomaly Detection and Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.09359/) (2024)
- [A Survey on Visual Anomaly Detection: Challenge, Approach, and Prospect](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.16402/) (2024)
- [MemSeg: A semi-supervised method for image surface defect detection using differences and commonalities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.00908/) (2022)
- [Few-Shot Defect Image Generation via Defect-Aware Feature Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.02389/) (2023)
- [The Eyecandies Dataset for Unsupervised Multimodal Anomaly Detection and Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.04570/) (2022)
- [Collaborative Discrepancy Optimization for Reliable Image Anomaly Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.08769/) (2023)
- [PAD: A Dataset and Benchmark for Pose-agnostic Anomaly Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.07716/) (2023)
- [GLAD: Towards Better Reconstruction with Global and Local Adaptive Diffusion Models for Unsupervised Anomaly Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.07487/) (2024)
- [Dual-Interrelated Diffusion Model for Few-Shot Anomaly Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.13509/) (2024)
- [SeaS: Few-shot Industrial Anomaly Image Generation with Separation and Sharing Fine-tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.14987/) (2024)
- [Unseen Visual Anomaly Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.01078/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [ISP-AD: A Large-Scale Real-World Dataset for Advancing Industrial Anomaly Detection with Synthetic and Real Defects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.04997/) (2025)
- [3D-PNAS: 3D Industrial Surface Anomaly Synthesis with Perlin Noise](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.12856/) (2025)
- [A Comprehensive Survey for Real-World Industrial Defect Detection: Challenges, Approaches, and Prospects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.13378/) (2025)
- [Mentor3AD: Feature Reconstruction-based 3D Anomaly Detection via Multi-modality Mentor Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.21420/) (2025)
- [FAST: Foreground-aware Diffusion with Accelerated Sampling Trajectory for Segmentation-oriented Anomaly Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.20295/) (2025)
- [AnomalyAgent: Agentic Industrial Anomaly Synthesis via Tool-Augmented Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.07900/) (2026)
- [FLASH: A "Generate Once, Synthesize Many" Framework for Synthetic Anomaly Generation in Industrial Anomaly Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.37314/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

This paper presents a comprehensive review of industrial anomaly synthesis (IAS). Existing surveys on industrial anomalies mainly focus on anomaly detection, while IAS is typically treated as an auxiliary component rather than as an independent topic. However, owing to its increasing importance in data augmentation, downstream model training, and controllable industrial inspection, IAS has become a research direction of growing interest. To address the lack of a dedicated review, we survey a broad range of representative methods and organize them into four paradigms: hand-crafted synthesis, distribution hypothesis-based synthesis, generative model (GM)-based synthesis, and vision-language model (VLM)-based synthesis. We further establish a dedicated taxonomy for IAS, which supports more systematic comparison across methods and offers a clearer view of the field's development. Beyond methodological categorization, we summarize the datasets, benchmarks, and evaluation metrics commonly adopted in IAS, and review recent advances in multimodal anomaly synthesis that remain underexplored in prior surveys. We also provide deployment-oriented comparisons and practical guidance by analyzing input requirements, output forms, controllability, cost, downstream tasks, and practical limitations across IAS subcategories. Overall, this survey provides a structured understanding of existing IAS methods, evaluation settings, practical trade-offs, current limitations, and promising future directions, and is intended to serve as a reference for subsequent research in this area. More resources are available at https://github.com/M-3LAB/awesome-anomaly-synthesis.