Structure-aware Meta-fusion for Image Super-resolution

Abstract

There are two main categories of image super-resolution algorithms: distortion oriented and perception oriented. Recent evidence shows that reconstruction accuracy and perceptual quality are typically in disagreement with each other. In this article, we present a new image super-resolution framework that is capable of striking a balance between distortion and perception. The core of our framework is a deep fusion network capable of generating a final high-resolution image by fusing a pair of deterministic and stochastic images using spatially varying weights. To make a single fusion model produce images with varying degrees of stochasticity, we further incorporate meta-learning into our fusion network. Once equipped with the kernel produced by a kernel prediction module, our meta fusion network is able to produce final images at any desired level of stochasticity. Experimental results indicate that our meta fusion network outperforms existing state-of-the-art SISR algorithms on widely used datasets, including PIRM-val, DIV2K-val, Set5, Set14, Urban100, Manga109, and B100. In addition, it is capable of producing high-resolution images that achieve low distortion and high perceptual quality simultaneously.