mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Adaptive Domain Shift in Diffusion Models for Cross-Modality Image Translation

arXiv 2601.18623 ↗First posted 26 Jan 2026cs.CVcited by 3

On the map: Diffusion models → Image generation, text-to-image and editing

Abstract (arXiv)

Cross-modal image translation remains brittle and inefficient. Standard diffusion approaches often rely on a single, global linear transfer between domains. We find that this shortcut forces the sampler to traverse off-manifold, high-cost regions, inflating the correction burden and inviting semantic drift. We refer to this shared failure mode as fixed-schedule domain transfer. In this paper, we embed domain-shift dynamics directly into the generative process. Our model predicts a spatially varying mixing field at every reverse step and injects an explicit, target-consistent restoration term into the drift. This in-step guidance keeps large updates on-manifold and shifts the model's role from global alignment to local residual correction. We provide a continuous-time formulation with an exact solution form and derive a practical first-order sampler that preserves marginal consistency. Empirically, across translation tasks in medical imaging, remote sensing, and electroluminescence semantic mapping, our framework improves structural fidelity and semantic consistency while converging in fewer denoising steps.

Key facts. Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Image generation, text-to-image and editing, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 28 of its 48 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 26 Jan 2026.

Builds on

28 of 48 references.

Closest ancestors · 2

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2022BBDM: Image-to-image Translation with Brownian Bridge Diffusion Models16 May
  2. 2022Dual Diffusion Implicit Bridges for Image-to-Image Translation16 Mar

Other references · 26

  1. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 21,076
  2. 2021High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 18,863
  3. 2020Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equationscited by 9,122
  4. 2016Image-to-Image Translation with Conditional Adversarial Networkscited by 4,527
  5. 2022DPM-Solver++: Fast Solver for Guided Sampling of Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 938
  6. 2023Adversarial Diffusion Distillationcited by 759
  7. 2021ILVR: Conditioning Method for Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 635
  8. 2023Exploiting Diffusion Prior for Real-World Image Super-Resolutioncited by 489
  9. 2023SeeSR: Towards Semantics-Aware Real-World Image Super-Resolutioncited by 315
  10. 2023I2SB: Image-to-Image Schr"odinger Bridgecited by 218
  11. 2022Unsupervised Medical Image Translation with Adversarial Diffusion Modelscited by 192
  12. 2022EGSDE: Unpaired Image-to-Image Translation via Energy-Guided Stochastic Differential Equationscited by 172
14 more
  1. 2018MedGAN: Medical Image Translation using GANscited by 152
  2. 2016Medical Image Synthesis with Context-Aware Generative Adversarial Networkscited by 91
  3. 2020Unsupervised Multi-Modal Image Registration via Geometry Preserving Image-to-Image Translationcited by 66
  4. 2024Diffusion Bridge Implicit Modelscited by 49
  5. 2018The SEN1-2 Dataset for Deep Learning in SAR-Optical Data Fusioncited by 42
  6. 2023Zero-shot Medical Image Translation via Frequency-Guided Diffusion Modelscited by 40
  7. 2024Self-Consistent Recursive Diffusion Bridge for Medical Image Translationcited by 26
  8. 2024Cross-conditioned Diffusion Model for Medical Image to Image Translationcited by 26
  9. 2024Consistency Diffusion Bridge Modelscited by 23
  10. 2024Taming Diffusion Prior for Image Super-Resolution with Domain Shift SDEscited by 13
  11. 2024Diffuse-UDA: Addressing Unsupervised Domain Adaptation in Medical Image Segmentation with Appearance and Structure Aligned Diffusion Modelscited by 6
  12. 2025Deterministic Image-to-Image Translation via Denoising Brownian Bridge Models with Dual Approximatorscited by 5
  13. 2025MSF: Efficient Diffusion Model Via Multi-Scale Latent Factorizecited by 2
  14. 2025SAR-to-RGB Translation with Latent Diffusion for Earth Observationcited by 1

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 3.

3 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026Discrete Diffusion Bridges for Spatiotemporally Aligned Image Translation and Generation
  2. 2026Decoupled Residual Denoising Diffusion Models for Unified and Data Efficient Image-to-Image Translation
  3. 2025CycleDiff: Cycle Diffusion Models for Unpaired Image-to-image Translation
  4. 2025CM-Diff: A Single Generative Network for Bidirectional Cross-Modality Translation Diffusion Model Between Infrared and Visible Images
  5. 2025Conditional Consistency Guided Image Translation and Enhancement
  6. 2026Structured Diffusion Bridges: Inductive Bias for Denoising Diffusion Bridges
  7. 2025A Diffusion Model Translator for Efficient Image-to-Image Translation
  8. 2023Improving Diffusion-based Image Translation using Asymmetric Gradient Guidance