mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

ContraFM-S2O: Flow Matching-Based One-step SAR-to-Optical Image Translation Model with Contrastive Learning

arXiv 2609.31378 ↗First posted 25 Sep 2026cs.CVcited by 0

On the map: Diffusion models → Inverse problems and image restoration

Abstract (arXiv)

In recent years, diffusion models and GAN-based models have become the mainstream approaches for SAR-to-optical image translation, owing to their advantages, such as high-quality generation and stable training. However, they have shortcomings such as high inference latency and the generated optical images suffer from low detail fidelity, often resulting in blurred edges and loss of fine textures. Thus, we propose ContraFM-S2O, which is a flow matching-based model for SAR-to-optical image translation. Unlike conventional diffusion models, ContraFM-S2O learns to predict the velocity field in training and solves ODE instead of SDE during inference to improve the sampling efficiency. In addition, ContraFM-S2O replaces instantaneous velocity with average velocity along the interpolation path to realize one-step SAR-to-optical image translation and uses contrastive learning to improve the quality of the generated optical images. Experiments show our model achieves state-of-the-art on SAR2Opt and QXS datasets, outperforming baselines, and reduces inference latency via one-step generation.

Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Inverse problems and image restoration, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 11 of its 19 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 25 Sep 2026.

Builds on

11 of 19 references.

Closest ancestors · 1

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2024Conditional Brownian Bridge Diffusion Model for VHR SAR to Optical Image Translation15 Aug

Other references · 10

  1. 2018The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metriccited by 11,029
  2. 2022Flow Matching for Generative Modelingcited by 5,426
  3. 2016Image-to-Image Translation with Conditional Adversarial Networkscited by 4,510
  4. 2022Flow Straight and Fast: Learning to Generate and Transfer Data with Rectified Flowcited by 3,550
  5. 2017Unpaired Image-to-Image Translation using Cycle-Consistent Adversarial Networkscited by 707
  6. 2020Contrastive Learning for Unpaired Image-to-Image Translationcited by 637
  7. 2025Mean Flows for One-step Generative Modelingcited by 524
  8. 2021The QXS-SAROPT Dataset for Deep Learning in SAR-Optical Data Fusioncited by 27
  9. 2024The Dawn of KAN in Image-to-Image (I2I) Translation: Integrating Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks with GANs for Unpaired I2I Translationcited by 7
  10. 2025CycleDiff: Cycle Diffusion Models for Unpaired Image-to-image Translationcited by 6

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  1. 2024Accelerating Diffusion for SAR-to-Optical Image Translation via Adversarial Consistency Distillation
  2. 2023SAR-to-Optical Image Translation via Thermodynamics-inspired Network
  3. 2026ReFlowSET: Representation-Aligned Latent Flow Matching for SAR-to-EO Image Translation
  4. 2024SAR to Optical Image Translation with Color Supervised Diffusion Model
  5. 2024C-DiffSET: Leveraging Latent Diffusion for SAR-to-EO Image Translation with Confidence-Guided Reliable Object Generation
  6. 2025SAR-to-RGB Translation with Latent Diffusion for Earth Observation
  7. 2025Unpaired Object-Level SAR-to-Optical Image Translation for Aircraft with Keypoints-Guided Diffusion Models
  8. 2025Quantitative Comparison of Fine-Tuning Techniques for Pretrained Latent Diffusion Models in the Generation of Unseen SAR Images