English

MG-SpaIR: Multi-grade Sparse-guided Implicit Representation for Training-Data-Free Image Restoration

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition 2026-06-30 v1

Abstract

MG-SpaIR is a training-data-free framework for restoring a clean image from a single observation corrupted by a mixture of blur, downsampling, noise, and missing pixels. Building on implicit neural representations (INRs), we introduce a multi-grade coarse-to-fine residual hierarchy that progressively refines the reconstruction across resolution grades, improving representational fidelity and mitigating spectral limitations. To stabilize reconstruction optimization and suppress INR-induced artifacts, we further propose an explicit sparse proximal regularization (e.g., 0\ell_0-type) applied directly in the high-resolution image domain, which discourages spurious high-frequency patterns while preserving sharp structures. The resulting optimization is solved efficiently via a multi-grade proximal alternating scheme, and we establish convergence guarantees for the associated updates under standard regularity conditions. Experiments on mixed-degradation benchmarks demonstrate that MG-SpaIR consistently outperforms strong training-data-free baselines such as Deep Image Prior, providing a stable, interpretable, and data-efficient alternative to conventional learning-based restoration methods.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.00138,
  title  = {MG-SpaIR: Multi-grade Sparse-guided Implicit Representation for Training-Data-Free Image Restoration},
  author = {Jianmin Liao and Lei Huang and Ronglong Fang and Ashley Prater-Bennette and Lixin Shen and Yuesheng Xu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.00138},
  year   = {2026}
}