# LUT-Fuse: Towards Extremely Fast Infrared and Visible Image Fusion via Distillation to Learnable Look-Up Tables

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.00346 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.00346/

## Key facts

- Cited by 9 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 14 of its 37 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 30 Aug 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01703/) (2019)
- [SegFormer: Simple and Efficient Design for Semantic Segmentation with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.15203/) (2021)
- [Target-aware Dual Adversarial Learning and a Multi-scenario Multi-Modality Benchmark to Fuse Infrared and Visible for Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.16220/) (2022)
- [LLVIP: A Visible-infrared Paired Dataset for Low-light Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.10831/) (2021)
- [CDDFuse: Correlation-Driven Dual-Branch Feature Decomposition for Multi-Modality Image Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.14461/) (2022)
- [DenseFuse: A Fusion Approach to Infrared and Visible Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.08361/) (2018)
- [Learning Image-adaptive 3D Lookup Tables for High Performance Photo Enhancement in Real-time](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.14468/) (2020)
- [DDFM: Denoising Diffusion Model for Multi-Modality Image Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.06840/) (2023)
- [Multi-interactive Feature Learning and a Full-time Multi-modality Benchmark for Image Fusion and Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.02097/) (2023)
- [Equivariant Multi-Modality Image Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.11443/) (2023)
- [LRRNet: A Novel Representation Learning Guided Fusion Network for Infrared and Visible Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.05172/) (2023)
- [Text-IF: Leveraging Semantic Text Guidance for Degradation-Aware and Interactive Image Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.16387/) (2024)
- [MEFLUT: Unsupervised 1D Lookup Tables for Multi-exposure Image Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.11847/) (2023)
- [FusionVAE: A Deep Hierarchical Variational Autoencoder for RGB Image Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.11277/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 9 of 9)

- [SOMA-1M: A Large-Scale SAR-Optical Multi-resolution Alignment Dataset for Multi-Task Remote Sensing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.05480/) (2026)
- [Modality Dominance-Aware Optimization for Embodied RGB-Infrared Perception](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.00598/) (2026)
- [Multi-Modal Image Fusion via Intervention-Stable Feature Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.23272/) (2026)
- [EAPFusion: Intrinsic Evolving Auxiliary Prior Guidance for Infrared and Visible Image Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.01916/) (2026)
- [Fusion in Your Way: Aligning Image Fusion with Heterogeneous Demands via Direct Preference Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.06049/) (2026)
- [UHD-MFF: Shattering Barriers in Multi-Focus Ultra-High-Definition Image Fusion via Learnable Lookup Tables](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.31242/) (2026)
- [IRPol-Fuse: Energy-structure coordination for infrared polarization fusion under low visibility](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.07848/) (2026)
- [P2Fusion: Prompt-based Progressive Infrared-Visible Image Fusion via Dual-Prior Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.13045/) (2026)
- [Diff-RF: Mutually Reinforced Image Registration and Fusion via Degradation-Aware Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.28235/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Current advanced research on infrared and visible image fusion primarily focuses on improving fusion performance, often neglecting the applicability on real-time fusion devices. In this paper, we propose a novel approach that towards extremely fast fusion via distillation to learnable lookup tables specifically designed for image fusion, termed as LUT-Fuse. Firstly, we develop a look-up table structure that utilizing low-order approximation encoding and high-level joint contextual scene encoding, which is well-suited for multi-modal fusion. Moreover, given the lack of ground truth in multi-modal image fusion, we naturally proposed the efficient LUT distillation strategy instead of traditional quantization LUT methods. By integrating the performance of the multi-modal fusion network (MM-Net) into the MM-LUT model, our method achieves significant breakthroughs in efficiency and performance. It typically requires less than one-tenth of the time compared to the current lightweight SOTA fusion algorithms, ensuring high operational speed across various scenarios, even in low-power mobile devices. Extensive experiments validate the superiority, reliability, and stability of our fusion approach. The code is available at https://github.com/zyb5/LUT-Fuse.