# Practical Noise Modeling for SPAD Intensity Imaging

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.00489 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.00489/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 17 of its 45 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 1 Aug 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 17 of 17)

- [Restormer: Efficient Transformer for High-Resolution Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.09881/) (2021)
- [Uformer: A General U-Shaped Transformer for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.03106/) (2021)
- [Learning to See in the Dark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.01934/) (2018)
- [Supervised Raw Video Denoising with a Benchmark Dataset on Dynamic Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.14013/) (2020)
- [Practical Deep Raw Image Denoising on Mobile Devices](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.06935/) (2020)
- [Physics-based Noise Modeling for Extreme Low-light Photography](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.02158/) (2021)
- [Rethinking Noise Synthesis and Modeling in Raw Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.04756/) (2021)
- [Dancing under the stars: video denoising in starlight](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.04210/) (2022)
- [A megapixel time-gated SPAD image sensor for 2D and 3D imaging applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.12910/) (2019)
- [Quanta Burst Photography](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11840/) (2020)
- [Towards General Low-Light Raw Noise Synthesis and Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.16508/) (2023)
- [Passive Inter-Photon Imaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.00059/) (2021)
- [A Computational Model of a Single-Photon Avalanche Diode Sensor for Transient Imaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.02635/) (2017)
- [Learning Physics-Informed Noise Models from Dark Frames for Low-Light Raw Image Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.09126/) (2023)
- [Noise Modeling in One Hour: Minimizing Preparation Efforts for Self-supervised Low-Light RAW Image Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.00045/) (2025)
- [2-Shots in the Dark: Low-Light Denoising with Minimal Data Acquisition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.03245/) (2025)
- [Photon Inhibition for Energy-Efficient Single-Photon Imaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.18337/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) cameras are promising for low-light and high-dynamic-range intensity imaging, but their practical use is limited by complex sensor-specific noise. Unlike time-correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC) systems, SPAD cameras record whether at least one detection occurred in each gate without photon timestamps in intensity imaging mode, making explicit noise decomposition difficult. We present a practical noise modeling and calibration framework for SPAD intensity denoising. Our forward model describes binary-frame accumulation with a Binomial observation process, models signal-independent dark noise as an exposure-dependent pure dark count term plus an exposure-independent dark-frame bias term, and incorporates pixel-wise response non-uniformity. We design a dedicated calibration procedure for the proposed model and use it to build a count-domain noise-synthesis pipeline for network training. For denoising, we further design a SPAD-specific dark-shading correction (SPAD-DSC) to remove most systematic noise before network training. We construct a real-world SPAD intensity dataset for testing. Experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed noise model.