TM-GAN: A Transformer-based Multi-modal Generative Adversarial Network for Guided Depth Image Super-resolution

Despite significant strides in deep single image super-resolution (SISR), the development of robust guided depth image super-resolution (GDSR) techniques presents a notable challenge. Effective GDSR methods must not only exploit the properties of the target image but also integrate complementary information from the guidance image. The state-of-the-art in guided image super-resolution has been dominated by convolutional neural network (CNN) based methods, which leverage CNN as their architecture. However, CNN has limitations in capturing global information effectively, and their traditional regression training techniques can sometimes lead to challenges in the precise generating of high-frequency details, unlike transformers that have shown remarkable success in deep learning through the self-attention mechanism. Drawing inspiration from the transformative impact of transformers in both language and vision applications, we propose a Transformer-based Multi-modal Generative Adversarial Network dubbed TM-GAN. TM-GAN is designed to effectively process and integrate multi-modal data, leveraging the global contextual understanding and detailed feature extraction capabilities of transformers within a GAN architecture for GDSR, aiming to effectively integrate and utilize multi-modal data sources. Experimental evaluations of TM-GAN on a variety of RGB-D datasets demonstrate its superiority over the state-of-the-art methods, showcasing its effectiveness in leveraging transformer-based techniques for GDSR.