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

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.18623 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.18623/

## 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.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Image generation, text-to-image and editing](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/image-generation-text-to-image-and-editing/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 28 of 28)

- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13456/) (2020)
- [Image-to-Image Translation with Conditional Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.07004/) (2016)
- [DPM-Solver++: Fast Solver for Guided Sampling of Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.01095/) (2022)
- [Adversarial Diffusion Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17042/) (2023)
- [ILVR: Conditioning Method for Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.02938/) (2021)
- [Exploiting Diffusion Prior for Real-World Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.07015/) (2023)
- [SeeSR: Towards Semantics-Aware Real-World Image Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16518/) (2023)
- [BBDM: Image-to-image Translation with Brownian Bridge Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.07680/) (2022)
- [I2SB: Image-to-Image Schr"odinger Bridge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05872/) (2023)
- [Dual Diffusion Implicit Bridges for Image-to-Image Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.08382/) (2022)
- [Unsupervised Medical Image Translation with Adversarial Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.08208/) (2022)
- [EGSDE: Unpaired Image-to-Image Translation via Energy-Guided Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.06635/) (2022)
- [MedGAN: Medical Image Translation using GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.06397/) (2018)
- [Medical Image Synthesis with Context-Aware Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.05362/) (2016)
- [Unsupervised Multi-Modal Image Registration via Geometry Preserving Image-to-Image Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.08073/) (2020)
- [Diffusion Bridge Implicit Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.15885/) (2024)
- [The SEN1-2 Dataset for Deep Learning in SAR-Optical Data Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.01569/) (2018)
- [Zero-shot Medical Image Translation via Frequency-Guided Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.02742/) (2023)
- [Self-Consistent Recursive Diffusion Bridge for Medical Image Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.06789/) (2024)
- [Cross-conditioned Diffusion Model for Medical Image to Image Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.08500/) (2024)
- [Consistency Diffusion Bridge Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.22637/) (2024)
- [Taming Diffusion Prior for Image Super-Resolution with Domain Shift SDEs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.17778/) (2024)
- [Diffuse-UDA: Addressing Unsupervised Domain Adaptation in Medical Image Segmentation with Appearance and Structure Aligned Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.05985/) (2024)
- [Deterministic Image-to-Image Translation via Denoising Brownian Bridge Models with Dual Approximators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.23463/) (2025)
- [MSF: Efficient Diffusion Model Via Multi-Scale Latent Factorize](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.13349/) (2025)
- [SAR-to-RGB Translation with Latent Diffusion for Earth Observation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.11154/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [HuiYanEarth-SAR: A Foundation Model for High-Fidelity and Low-Cost Global Remote Sensing Imagery Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.11444/) (2026)
- [EarthBridge: A Solution for 4th Multi-modal Aerial View Image Challenge Translation Track](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.06753/) (2026)
- [Learning the Target Priors Before Image Translation: A Decoupled Training Paradigm for Cross-Modal Image Translation in Remote Sensing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.28517/) (2026)

## 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.