VLDB 2026 Research / reviewers in the wild / expert
Yifan Zhou 0001
dblp:79/7629-1
· DBLP profile ↗
12ranked-venue papers
1as first author
12since 2021 · last 2026
0009-0004-6250-8333ORCID · conflict
Domains — the database's venue-derived domains; a paper can count in several
Artificial intelligence and machine learning · 10 · 1 first-author · 10 since 2021Graphics, computer vision, multimedia, augmented reality and games · 6 · 1 first-author · 6 since 2021Human-computer interaction and ubiquitous computing · 1 · 1 since 2021Applied, interdisciplinary, general and emerging computing · 1 · 1 since 2021
| Year | Publication | Venue | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Enhancing MMDiT-Based Text-to-Image Models for Similar Subject GenerationabstractRepresenting the cutting-edge technique of text-to-image models, the latest Multimodal Diffusion Transformer (MMDiT) largely mitigates many generation issues existing in previous models. However, we discover that it still suffers from subject neglect or mixing when the input text prompt contains multiple subjects of similar semantics or appearance. We identify three possible ambiguities within the MMDiT architecture that cause this problem: Inter-block Ambiguity, Text Encoder Ambiguity, and Semantic Ambiguity. To address these issues, we propose to repair the ambiguous latent on-the-fly by test-time optimization at early denoising steps. In detail, we design three loss functions: Block Alignment Loss, Text Encoder Alignment Loss, and Overlap Loss, each tailored to mitigate these ambiguities. Despite significant improvements, we observe that semantic ambiguity persists when generating multiple similar subjects, as the guidance provided by overlap loss is not explicit enough. Therefore, we further propose Overlap Online Detection and Back-to-Start Sampling Strategy to alleviate the problem. Experimental results on a newly constructed challenging dataset of similar subjects validate the effectiveness of our approach, showing superior generation quality and much higher success rates over existing methods. The consistent and substantial improvements observed across multiple MMDiT based text-to-image models such as SD3, SD3.5 and FLUX provide strong evidence of the general applicability of our method. Tianyi Wei, Dongdong Chen 0001, Yifan Zhou 0001, Xingang Pan |
IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell. | 3 |
| 2025 | Alias-Free Latent Diffusion Models: Improving Fractional Shift Equivariance of Diffusion Latent SpaceabstractLatent Diffusion Models (LDMs) are known to have an unstable generation process, where even small perturbations or shifts in the input noise can lead to significantly different outputs. This hinders their applicability in applications requiring consistent results. In this work, we redesign LDMs to enhance consistency by making them shift-equivariant. While introducing anti-aliasing operations can partially improve shift-equivariance, significant aliasing and inconsistency persist due to the unique challenges in LDMs, including 1) aliasing amplification during VAE training and multiple U-Net inferences, and 2) selfattention modules that inherently lack shift-equivariance. To address these issues, we redesign the attention modules to be shift-equivariant and propose an equivariance loss that effectively suppresses the frequency bandwidth of the features in the continuous domain. The resulting alias-free LDM (AF-LDM) achieves strong shift-equivariance and is also robust to irregular warping. Extensive experiments demonstrate that AF-LDM produces significantly more consistent results than vanilla LDM across various applications, including video editing and image-to-image translation. Code is available at: https://github.com/SingleZombie/AFLDM Yifan Zhou 0001, Zeqi Xiao, Shuai Yang 0001, Xingang Pan |
CVPR | 1 |
| 2025 | TokensGen: Harnessing Condensed Tokens for Long Video GenerationabstractGenerating consistent long videos is a complex challenge: while diffusion-based generative models generate visually impressive short clips, extending them to longer durations often leads to memory bottlenecks and long-term inconsistency. In this paper, we propose TokensGen, a novel two-stage framework that leverages condensed tokens to address these issues. Our method decomposes long video generation into three core tasks: (1) inner-clip semantic control, (2) long-term consistency control, and (3) inter-clip smooth transition. First, we train To2V (Token-to-Video), a short video diffusion model guided by text and video tokens, with a Video Tokenizer that condenses short clips into semantically rich tokens. Second, we introduce T2To (Text-to-Token), a video token diffusion transformer that generates all tokens at once, ensuring global consistency across clips. Finally, during inference, an adaptive FIFO-Diffusion strategy seamlessly connects adjacent clips, reducing boundary artifacts and enhancing smooth transitions. Experimental results demonstrate that our approach significantly enhances long-term temporal and content coherence without incurring prohibitive computational overhead. By leveraging condensed tokens and pre-trained short video models, our method provides a scalable, modular solution for long video generation, opening new possibilities for storytelling, cinematic production, and immersive simulations. Please see our project page at https://vicky0522.github.io/tokensgen-webpage/ . Wenqi Ouyang, Zeqi Xiao, Danni Yang, Yifan Zhou 0001, Shuai Yang 0001, Lei Yang 0045, Jianlou Si, Xingang Pan |
ICCV | 4 |
| 2025 | FreeFlux: Understanding and Exploiting Layer-Specific Roles in RoPE-Based MMDiT for Versatile Image EditingabstractThe integration of Rotary Position Embedding (RoPE) in Multimodal Diffusion Transformer (MMDiT) has significantly enhanced text-to-image generation quality. However, the fundamental reliance of self-attention layers on positional embedding versus query-key similarity during generation remains an intriguing question. We present the first mechanistic analysis of RoPE-based MMDiT models (e.g., FLUX), introducing an automated probing strategy that disentangles positional information versus content dependencies by strategically manipulating RoPE during generation. Our analysis reveals distinct dependency patterns that do not straightforwardly correlate with depth, offering new insights into the layer-specific roles in RoPE-based MMDiT. Based on these findings, we propose a training-free, task-specific image editing framework that categorizes editing tasks into three types: position-dependent editing (e.g., object addition), content similarity-dependent editing (e.g., non-rigid editing), and region-preserved editing (e.g., background replacement). For each type, we design tailored key-value injection strategies based on the characteristics of the editing task. Extensive qualitative and quantitative evaluations demonstrate that our method outperforms state-of-the-art approaches, particularly in preserving original semantic content and achieving seamless modifications. Tianyi Wei, Yifan Zhou 0001, Dongdong Chen 0001, Xingang Pan |
ICCV | 2 |
| 2025 | Trajectory attention for fine-grained video motion controlabstractRecent advancements in video generation have been greatly driven by video diffusion models, with camera motion control emerging as a crucial challenge in creating view-customized visual content. This paper introduces trajectory attention, a novel approach that performs attention along available pixel trajectories for fine-grained camera motion control. Unlike existing methods that often yield imprecise outputs or neglect temporal correlations, our approach possesses a stronger inductive bias that seamlessly injects trajectory information into the video generation process. Importantly, our approach models trajectory attention as an auxiliary branch alongside traditional temporal attention. This design enables the original temporal attention and the trajectory attention to work in synergy, ensuring both
precise motion control and new content generation capability, which is critical when the trajectory is only partially available. Experiments on camera motion control for images and videos demonstrate significant improvements in precision and long-range consistency while maintaining high-quality generation. Furthermore, we show that our approach can be extended to other video motion control tasks, such as first-frame-guided video editing, where it excels in maintaining content consistency over large spatial and temporal ranges. Zeqi Xiao, Wenqi Ouyang, Yifan Zhou 0001, Shuai Yang 0001, Lei Yang 0045, Jianlou Si, Xingang Pan |
ICLR | 3 |
| 2025 | WorldMem: Long-term Consistent World Simulation with MemoryabstractWorld simulation has gained increasing popularity due to its ability to model virtual environments and predict the consequences of actions. However, the limited temporal context window often leads to failures in maintaining long-term consistency, particularly in preserving 3D spatial consistency. In this work, we present WorldMem, a framework that enhances scene generation with a memory bank consisting of memory units that store memory frames and states (e.g., poses and timestamps). By employing state-aware memory attention that effectively extracts relevant information from these memory frames based on their states, our method is capable of accurately reconstructing previously observed scenes, even under significant viewpoint or temporal gaps. Furthermore, by incorporating timestamps into the states, our framework not only models a static world but also captures its dynamic evolution over time, enabling both perception and interaction within the simulated world. Extensive experiments in both virtual and real scenarios validate the effectiveness of our approach. Zeqi Xiao, Yushi Lan, Yifan Zhou 0001, Wenqi Ouyang, Shuai Yang 0001, Yanhong Zeng, Xingang Pan |
NeurIPS | 3 |
| 2024 | Fresco: Spatial-Temporal Correspondence for Zero-Shot Video TranslationabstractThe remarkable efficacy of text-to-image diffusion models has motivated extensive exploration of their potential application in video domains. Zero-shot methods seek to extend image diffusion models to videos without necessitating model training. Recent methods mainly focus on incorporating inter-frame correspondence into attention mechanisms. However, the soft constraint imposed on determining where to attend to valid features can sometimes be insufficient, resulting in temporal inconsistency. In this paper, we introduce FRESCO, intra-frame correspondence alongside inter-frame correspondence to establish a more robust spatial-temporal constraint. This enhancement ensures a more consistent transformation of semantically similar content across frames. Beyond mere attention guidance, our approach involves an explicit update of features to achieve high spatial-temporal consistency with the input video, significantly improving the visual coherence of the resulting translated videos. Extensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed framework in producing high-quality, coherent videos, marking a notable improvement over existing zero-shot methods. Shuai Yang 0001, Yifan Zhou 0001, Ziwei Liu 0002, Chen Change Loy |
CVPR | 2 |
| 2024 | DiffMorpher: Unleashing the Capability of Diffusion Models for Image MorphingabstractDiffusion models have achieved remarkable image generation quality surpassing previous generative models. However, a notable limitation of diffusion models, in comparison to GANs, is their difficulty in smoothly interpolating between two image samples, due to their highly unstructured latent space. Such a smooth interpolation is intriguing as it naturally serves as a solution for the image mor-phing task with many applications. In this work, we address this limitation via DiffMorpher, an approach that enables smooth and natural image interpolation by harnessing the prior knowledge of a pretrained diffusion model. Our key idea is to capture the semantics of the two images by fitting two LoRAs to them respectively, and interpolate between both the LoRA parameters and the latent noises to ensure a smooth semantic transition, where correspon-dence automatically emerges without the need for annotation. In addition, we propose an attention interpolation and injection technique, an adaptive normalization adjustment method, and a new sampling schedule to further enhance the smoothness between consecutive images. Extensive experiments demonstrate that DiffMorpher achieves starkly better image morphing effects than previous methods across a variety of object categories, bridging a critical functional gap that distinguished diffusion models from GANs. Kaiwen Zhang 0015, Yifan Zhou 0001, Xudong Xu, Bo Dai 0002, Xingang Pan |
CVPR | 2 |
| 2024 | Video Diffusion Models are Training-free Motion Interpreter and ControllerabstractVideo generation primarily aims to model authentic and customized motion across frames, making understanding and controlling the motion a crucial topic. Most diffusion-based studies on video motion focus on motion customization with training-based paradigms, which, however, demands substantial training resources and necessitates retraining for diverse models. Crucially, these approaches do not explore how video diffusion models encode cross-frame motion information in their features, lacking interpretability and transparency in their effectiveness. To answer this question, this paper introduces a novel perspective to understand, localize, and manipulate motion-aware features in video diffusion models. Through analysis using Principal Component Analysis (PCA), our work discloses that robust motion-aware feature already exists in video diffusion models. We present a new MOtion FeaTure (MOFT) by eliminating content correlation information and filtering motion channels. MOFT provides a distinct set of benefits, including the ability to encode comprehensive motion information with clear interpretability, extraction without the need for training, and generalizability across diverse architectures. Leveraging MOFT, we propose a novel training-free video motion control framework. Our method demonstrates competitive performance in generating natural and faithful motion, providing architecture-agnostic insights and applicability in a variety of downstream tasks. Zeqi Xiao, Yifan Zhou 0001, Shuai Yang 0001, Xingang Pan |
NeurIPS | 2 |
| 2023 | Rerender A Video: Zero-Shot Text-Guided Video-to-Video TranslationabstractLarge text-to-image diffusion models have exhibited impressive proficiency in generating high-quality images. However, when applying these models to video domain, ensuring temporal consistency across video frames remains a formidable challenge. This paper proposes a novel zero-shot text-guided video-to-video translation framework to adapt image models to videos. The framework includes two parts: key frame translation and full video translation. The first part uses an adapted diffusion model to generate key frames, with hierarchical cross-frame constraints applied to enforce coherence in shapes, textures and colors. The second part propagates the key frames to other frames with temporal-aware patch matching and frame blending. Our framework achieves global style and local texture temporal consistency at a low cost (without re-training or optimization). The adaptation is compatible with existing image diffusion techniques, allowing our framework to take advantage of them, such as customizing a specific subject with LoRA, and introducing extra spatial guidance with ControlNet. Extensive experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed framework over existing methods in rendering high-quality and temporally-coherent videos. Code is available at our project page: https://www.mmlab-ntu.com/project/rerender/ Shuai Yang 0001, Yifan Zhou 0001, Ziwei Liu 0002, Chen Change Loy |
SIGGRAPH Asia | 2 |
| 2023 | PanoFlow: Learning 360° Optical Flow for Surrounding Temporal UnderstandingabstractOptical flow estimation is a basic task in self-driving and robotics systems, which enables to temporally interpret traffic scenes. Autonomous vehicles clearly benefit from the ultra-wide Field of View (FoV) offered by 360° panoramic sensors. However, due to the unique imaging process of panoramic cameras, models designed for pinhole images do not directly generalize satisfactorily to 360° panoramic images. In this paper, we put forward a novel network framework——PANO FLOW, to learn optical flow for panoramic images. To overcome the distortions introduced by equirectangular projection in panoramic transformation, we design a Flow Distortion Augmentation (FDA) method, which contains radial flow distortion (FDA-R) or equirectangular flow distortion (FDA-E). We further look into the definition and properties of cyclic optical flow for panoramic videos, and hereby propose a Cyclic Flow Estimation (CFE) method by leveraging the cyclicity of spherical images to infer 360° optical flow and converting large displacement to relatively small displacement. PanoFlow is applicable to any existing flow estimation method and benefits from the progress of narrow-FoV flow estimation. In addition, we create and release a synthetic panoramic dataset FlowScape based on CARLA to facilitate training and quantitative analysis. PanoFlow achieves state-of-the-art performance on the public OmniFlowNet and the fresh established FlowScape benchmarks. Our proposed approach reduces the End-Point-Error (EPE) on FlowScape by 27.3%. On OmniFlowNet, PanoFlow achieves an EPE of 3.17 pixels, a 55.5% error reduction from the best published result (7.12 pixels). We also qualitatively validate our method via an outdoor collection vehicle and a public real-world OmniPhotos dataset, indicating strong potential and robustness for real-world navigation applications. Code and dataset are publicly available at PanoFlow. Hao Shi 0004, Yifan Zhou 0001, Kailun Yang 0001, Xiaoting Yin, Ze Wang 0009, Yaozu Ye, Shi Meng, Peng Li 0034, Kaiwei Wang |
IEEE Trans. Intell. Transp. Syst. | 2 |
| 2022 | CSFlow: Learning Optical Flow via Cross Strip Correlation for Autonomous DrivingabstractOptical flow estimation is an essential task in self-driving systems, which helps autonomous vehicles perceive temporal continuity information of surrounding scenes. The calculation of all-pair correlation plays an important role in many existing state-of-the-art optical flow estimation methods. However, the reliance on local knowledge often limits the model’s accuracy under complex street scenes. In this paper, we propose a new deep network architecture for optical flow estimation in autonomous driving——CSFlow, which consists of two novel modules: Cross Strip Correlation module (CSC) and Correlation Regression Initialization module (CRI). CSC utilizes a striping operation across the target image and the attended image to encode global context into correlation volumes, while maintaining high efficiency. CRI is used to maximally exploit the global context for optical flow initialization. Our method has achieved state-of-the-art accuracy on the public autonomous driving dataset KITTI-2015. Code is publicly available at https://github.com/MasterHow/CSFlow. Hao Shi 0004, Yifan Zhou 0001, Kailun Yang 0001, Xiaoting Yin, Kaiwei Wang |
IV | 2 |