PTDiffusion: Free Lunch for Generating Optical Illusion Hidden Pictures with Phase-Transferred Diffusion Model
On the map: Diffusion models → Image generation, text-to-image and editing
Abstract (arXiv)
Optical illusion hidden picture is an interesting visual perceptual phenomenon where an image is cleverly integrated into another picture in a way that is not immediately obvious to the viewer. Established on the off-the-shelf text-to-image (T2I) diffusion model, we propose a novel training-free text-guided image-to-image (I2I) translation framework dubbed as Phase-Transferred Diffusion Model (PTDiffusion) for hidden art syntheses. PTDiffusion harmoniously embeds an input reference image into arbitrary scenes described by the text prompts, producing illusion images exhibiting hidden visual cues of the reference image. At the heart of our method is a plug-and-play phase transfer mechanism that dynamically and progressively transplants diffusion features' phase spectrum from the denoising process to reconstruct the reference image into the one to sample the generated illusion image, realizing deep fusion of the reference structural information and the textual semantic information in the diffusion model latent space. Furthermore, we propose asynchronous phase transfer to enable flexible control to the degree of hidden content discernability. Our method bypasses any model training and fine-tuning process, all while substantially outperforming related text-guided I2I methods in image generation quality, text fidelity, visual discernibility, and contextual naturalness for illusion picture synthesis, as demonstrated by extensive qualitative and quantitative experiments. Our project is publically available at hrefhttps://xianggao1102.github.io/PTDiffusionwebpage/this web page.
Key facts. Cited by 7 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Image generation, text-to-image and editing, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 40 of its 52 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 8 Mar 2025.
Builds on
40 of 52 references.
Closest ancestors · 14
Same direction, newest first
- 2024FBSDiff: Plug-and-Play Frequency Band Substitution of Diffusion Features for Highly Controllable Text-Driven Image Translation2 Aug
- 2024Frequency-Controlled Diffusion Model for Versatile Text-Guided Image-to-Image Translation3 Jul
- 2024Text2QR: Harmonizing Aesthetic Customization and Scanning Robustness for Text-Guided QR Code Generation11 Mar
- 2023Visual Anagrams: Generating Multi-View Optical Illusions with Diffusion Models29 Nov
- 2023Uni-ControlNet: All-in-One Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models25 May
- 2023Prompt Tuning Inversion for Text-Driven Image Editing Using Diffusion Models8 May
- 2023T2I-Adapter: Learning Adapters to Dig out More Controllable Ability for Text-to-Image Diffusion Models16 Feb
- 2023Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models10 Feb
- 2022Null-text Inversion for Editing Real Images using Guided Diffusion Models17 Nov
- 2022Imagic: Text-Based Real Image Editing with Diffusion Models17 Oct
- 2022Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding23 May
- 2022Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latents13 Apr
2 more
Other references · 26
- 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 20,851
- 2021High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 18,694
- 2020Denoising Diffusion Implicit Modelscited by 9,655
- 2021Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesiscited by 8,185
- 2018A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networkscited by 5,986
- 2022Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidancecited by 5,717
- 2016Image-to-Image Translation with Conditional Adversarial Networkscited by 4,510
- 2023SDXL: Improving Latent Diffusion Models for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 4,290
- 2024Scaling Rectified Flow Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 4,094
- 2022DreamFusion: Text-to-3D using 2D Diffusioncited by 3,006
- 2022Prompt-to-Prompt Image Editing with Cross Attention Controlcited by 2,409
- 2021SDEdit: Guided Image Synthesis and Editing with Stochastic Differential Equationscited by 1,903
14 more
- 2022Plug-and-Play Diffusion Features for Text-Driven Image-to-Image Translationcited by 897
- 2020Contrastive Learning for Unpaired Image-to-Image Translationcited by 637
- 2022Score Jacobian Chaining: Lifting Pretrained 2D Diffusion Models for 3D Generationcited by 597
- 2023Zero-shot Image-to-Image Translationcited by 503
- 2022Splicing ViT Features for Semantic Appearance Transfercited by 209
- 2018Geometry-Consistent Generative Adversarial Networks for One-Sided Unsupervised Domain Mappingcited by 113
- 2017Multi-Content GAN for Few-Shot Font Style Transfercited by 100
- 2023Diffusion Illusions: Hiding Images in Plain Sightcited by 26
- 2020A Content Transformation Block For Image Style Transfercited by 19
- 2023Scenimefy: Learning to Craft Anime Scene via Semi-Supervised Image-to-Image Translationcited by 15
- 2023The Making and Breaking of Camouflagecited by 14
- 2022Learning to Incorporate Texture Saliency Adaptive Attention to Image Cartoonizationcited by 5
- 2024DiffQRCoder: Diffusion-based Aesthetic QR Code Generation with Scanning Robustness Guided Iterative Refinementcited by 3
- 2024SRAGAN: Saliency Regularized and Attended Generative Adversarial Network for Chinese Ink-wash Painting Style Transfercited by 2
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2025: 4; 2026: 3.
7 papers.
- 2025NeuralRemaster: Phase-Preserving Diffusion for Structure-Aligned Generationcited by 5
- 2025Text-guided Controllable Diffusion for Realistic Camouflage Images Generationcited by 3
- 2025AGSwap: Overcoming Category Boundaries in Object Fusion via Adaptive Group Swappingcited by 2
- 2026Stroke of Surprise: Progressive Semantic Illusions in Vector Sketchingcited by 1
- 2026To Blend In, First Decouple: Rethinking Camouflage Image Generation via Context-Decoupled Representationscited by 1
- 2025When Harmful Content Gets Camouflaged: Unveiling Perception Failure of LVLMs with CamHarmTIcited by 0
- 2026JanusMesh: Fast and Zero-Shot 3D Visual Illusion Generation via Cross-Space Denoisingcited by 0
- 2026To Blend In, First Decouple: Rethinking Camouflage Image Generation via Context-Decoupled Representations20 Jul 2026
- 2026JanusMesh: Fast and Zero-Shot 3D Visual Illusion Generation via Cross-Space Denoising18 Jun 2026
- 2026Stroke of Surprise: Progressive Semantic Illusions in Vector Sketching12 Feb 2026
- 2025NeuralRemaster: Phase-Preserving Diffusion for Structure-Aligned Generation4 Dec 2025
- 2025When Harmful Content Gets Camouflaged: Unveiling Perception Failure of LVLMs with CamHarmTI29 Nov 2025
- 2025Text-guided Controllable Diffusion for Realistic Camouflage Images Generation25 Nov 2025
- 2025AGSwap: Overcoming Category Boundaries in Object Fusion via Adaptive Group Swapping23 Sep 2025
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2024Factorized Diffusion: Perceptual Illusions by Noise Decomposition
- 2026Structure-Semantic Co-optimized Latent Diffusion Model for Fast Visual Anagram Synthesis
- 2024Plug-and-Play Diffusion Distillation
- 2024Illusion3D: 3D Multiview Illusion with 2D Diffusion Priors
- 2025PSDiffusion: Harmonized Multi-Layer Image Generation via Layout and Appearance Alignment
- 2023MultiDiffusion: Fusing Diffusion Paths for Controlled Image Generation
- 2025Edit2Perceive: Image Editing Diffusion Models Are Strong Dense Perceivers
- 2024Eye-for-an-eye: Appearance Transfer with Semantic Correspondence in Diffusion Models