# NGPS: Structure-Preserving Self-Supervised Denoising via Neighbor-Guided Patch Sampling

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.23200 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.23200/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 19 of its 41 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 22 Jun 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 19 of 19)

- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [Beyond a Gaussian Denoiser: Residual Learning of Deep CNN for Image Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.03981/) (2016)
- [Deep Image Prior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.10925/) (2017)
- [Simple Baselines for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.04676/) (2022)
- [Noise2Noise: Learning Image Restoration without Clean Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.04189/) (2018)
- [Noise2Void - Learning Denoising from Single Noisy Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.10980/) (2018)
- [Noise2Self: Blind Denoising by Self-Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.11365/) (2019)
- [Low-Dose CT with a Residual Encoder-Decoder Convolutional Neural Network (RED-CNN)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.00288/) (2017)
- [Gradient Magnitude Similarity Deviation: A Highly Efficient Perceptual Image Quality Index](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1308.3052/) (2013)
- [Neighbor2Neighbor: Self-Supervised Denoising from Single Noisy Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.02824/) (2021)
- [Blind2Unblind: Self-Supervised Image Denoising with Visible Blind Spots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.06967/) (2022)
- [Zero-Shot Noise2Noise: Efficient Image Denoising without any Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11253/) (2023)
- [Noise2Same: Optimizing A Self-Supervised Bound for Image Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11971/) (2020)
- [Patch2Self: Denoising Diffusion MRI with Self-Supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.01355/) (2020)
- [Deformed2Self: Self-Supervised Denoising for Dynamic Medical Imaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.12175/) (2021)
- [Neighboring Slice Noise2Noise: Self-Supervised Medical Image Denoising from Single Noisy Image Volume](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.10831/) (2024)
- [DiffDenoise: Self-Supervised Medical Image Denoising with Conditional Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.00264/) (2025)
- [Unsupervised Training of a Dynamic Context-Aware Deep Denoising Framework for Low-Dose Fluoroscopic Imaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.00830/) (2024)
- [Graph Flow Matching: Enhancing Image Generation with Neighbor-Aware Flow Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.24434/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Neighboring-slice self-supervised denoising is attractive for volumetric medical imaging, yet inter-slice misalignment breaks anatomical correspondence and often yields ghosting and blurred margins when adjacent slices are used naively as targets. We propose Neighbor-Guided Patch Sampling (NGPS), a lightweight framework that constructs neighboring supervision under local inter-slice misalignment without explicit registration. To avoid learning from misleading targets, prior methods commonly mask discrepant regions, but this stabilizes training at the cost of leaving a non-trivial portion of neighboring evidence unexploited, particularly around high-frequency anatomical boundaries. NGPS addresses this by decoupling structure matching from signal retrieval: for each masked location, it searches a local neighborhood for structurally similar candidate patches using a simple guide image (e.g., fast bilateral filtering), while retrieving the supervision signal directly from the raw noisy neighbor at the matched coordinates. By matching on a noise-attenuated guide while retrieving raw values from neighboring slices, NGPS constructs local pseudo targets without a learned registration module. Across the evaluated CT and synthetic-Rician MRI settings, NGPS improves fidelity and structure-sensitive metrics. Code is available at https://github.com/cv-cho/NGPS .