Depthwise channel attention network (DWCAN): An efficient and lightweight model for single image super‐resolution and metaverse gaming

Abstract

Single image super‐resolution (SISR) has gained significant attention in image processing and computer vision, driven by deep learning‐based models like convolutional neural networks (CNN). Yet, the resource‐intensive nature of these models poses challenges when deploying them on edge devices. To address this issue, resource‐constrained models need to be developed. While recent models like the information distillation network (IDN), the information multi‐distillation network (IMDN), the residual feature distillation network (RFDN), and so on, have attempted to reduce parameters and computational complexity, further optimization remains vital. Therefore, this paper presents an approach to enhancing the efficiency and lightweight nature of the SISR. We introduce a novel lightweight SR model by building upon the RFDN architecture, the winner of the AIM2020 and NTIRE2022 SR challenges. The proposed depthwise channel attention network (DWCAN) model makes some key changes to RFDN. First, it replaces the main residual feature distillation block (RFDB) with a depthwise channel attention block (DWCAB). Additionally, DWCAN includes a shallow residual block (SRB) with depthwise separable convolution (DW) and a channel attention (CA) block. The primary goal of our work is to significantly reduce model parameters, computational operations, inference time, and memory size while maintaining or improving a peak signal‐to‐noise ratio (PSNR) of 29 dB. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model. By applying our modifications, we achieve a notable reduction in model complexity, leading to an improved PSNR of 29.07 dB, up from RFDN's 29.04 dB on a diverse 2 K resolution (DIV2K) dataset. This underscores the potential of our lightweight model to balance computational efficiency and SR quality. Additionally, the proposed work is essential for the metaverse for two key reasons: (1) Enhancing visual quality by adding complex details to textures and objects, making the digital world feel more like reality. (2) Ensuring device compatibility across a range of gadgets, from smartphones to VR headsets, optimizing the metaverse experience for all users. In short, a lightweight single image super‐resolution model for image reconstruction is proposed in this paper.