Efficient Hi-Fi Style Transfer via Statistical Attention and Modulation

Abstract

Style transfer is a challenging task in computer vision, aiming to blend the stylistic features of one image with the content of another while preserving the content details. Traditional methods often face challenges in terms of computational efficiency and fine-grained content preservation. In this paper, we propose a novel feature modulation mechanism based on parameterized normalization, where the modulation parameters for content and style features are learned using a dual convolution network (BiConv). These parameters adjust the mean and standard deviation of the features, improving both the stability and quality of the style transfer process. To achieve fast inference, we introduce an efficient acceleration technique by leveraging a row and column weighted attention matrix. In addition, we incorporate a contrastive learning scheme to align the local features of the content and the stylized images, improving the fidelity of the generated output. Experimental results demonstrate that our method significantly improves the inference speed and the quality of style transfer while preserving content details, outperforming existing approaches based on both convolution and diffusion.