# HiWave: Training-Free High-Resolution Image Generation via Wavelet-Based Diffusion Sampling

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.20452 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.20452/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Diffusion foundations and sampling, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 34 of its 47 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 25 Jun 2025.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Diffusion foundations and sampling](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/diffusion-foundations-and-sampling/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 34)

- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02502/) (2020)
- [Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13456/) (2020)
- [Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05233/) (2021)
- [Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11487/) (2022)
- [Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.12598/) (2022)
- [Rethinking the Inception Architecture for Computer Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.00567/) (2015)
- [SDXL: Improving Latent Diffusion Models for High-Resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.01952/) (2023)
- [Scaling Rectified Flow Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.03206/) (2024)
- [Improved Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.09672/) (2021)
- [Improved Techniques for Training GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.03498/) (2016)
- [Large Scale GAN Training for High Fidelity Natural Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.11096/) (2018)
- [DiffWave: A Versatile Diffusion Model for Audio Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.09761/) (2020)
- [Palette: Image-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.05826/) (2021)
- [Demystifying MMD GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.01401/) (2018)
- [Human Motion Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14916/) (2022)
- [eDiff-I: Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with an Ensemble of Expert Denoisers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.01324/) (2022)
- [WaveGrad: Estimating Gradients for Waveform Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.00713/) (2020)
- [Analyzing and Improving the Training Dynamics of Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02696/) (2023)
- [SANA: Efficient High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Linear Diffusion Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.10629/) (2024)
- [Photorealistic Video Generation with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.06662/) (2023)
- [EDGE: Editable Dance Generation From Music](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.10658/) (2022)
- [I2SB: Image-to-Image Schr"odinger Bridge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05872/) (2023)
- [Deep Generative Image Models using a Laplacian Pyramid of Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.05751/) (2015)
- [PIXART-δ: Fast and Controllable Image Generation with Latent Consistency Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.05252/) (2024)
- [CADS: Unleashing the Diversity of Diffusion Models through Condition-Annealed Sampling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.17347/) (2023)
- [ScaleCrafter: Tuning-free Higher-Resolution Visual Generation with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.07702/) (2023)
- [DemoFusion: Democratising High-Resolution Image Generation With No ](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16973/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [PixelRush: Ultra-Fast, Training-Free High-Resolution Image Generation via One-step Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.12769/) (2026)
- [Colorful-Noise: Training-Free Low-Frequency Noise Manipulation for Color-Based Conditional Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.00548/) (2026)
- [An Iteration-Free Fixed-Point Estimator for Diffusion Inversion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.08547/) (2025)
- [Wavelet Phase Diffusion for Structurally and Semantically Consistent Sim-to-Real Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.21628/) (2026)
- [HRDiT: Training-Free High-Resolution Image Generation with Off-the-Shelf Diffusion Transformer Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.07003/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Diffusion models have emerged as the leading approach for image synthesis, demonstrating exceptional photorealism and diversity. However, training diffusion models at high resolutions remains computationally prohibitive, and existing zero-shot generation techniques for synthesizing images beyond training resolutions often produce artifacts, including object duplication and spatial incoherence. In this paper, we introduce HiWave, a training-free, zero-shot approach that substantially enhances visual fidelity and structural coherence in ultra-high-resolution image synthesis using pretrained diffusion models. Our method employs a two-stage pipeline: generating a base image from the pretrained model followed by a patch-wise DDIM inversion step and a novel wavelet-based detail enhancer module. Specifically, we first utilize inversion methods to derive initial noise vectors that preserve global coherence from the base image. Subsequently, during sampling, our wavelet-domain detail enhancer retains low-frequency components from the base image to ensure structural consistency, while selectively guiding high-frequency components to enrich fine details and textures. Extensive evaluations using Stable Diffusion XL demonstrate that HiWave effectively mitigates common visual artifacts seen in prior methods, achieving superior perceptual quality. A user study confirmed HiWave's performance, where it was preferred over the state-of-the-art alternative in more than 80% of comparisons, highlighting its effectiveness for high-quality, ultra-high-resolution image synthesis without requiring retraining or architectural modifications.