Jianfang Cao
Current Organizations / Institutes
The organizations/institutes from the scholar's latest article
Previous Organizations / Institutes
The organizations / institutes from the scholar's other articles in the past ten years
Research Subjects
Jianfang Cao has a total of 43 co-authors. Here are the top co-authors by number of shared publications:
Yun Tian
Department of Computer Science & Technology, Xinzhou Normal University, Xinzhou, China
7 shared publicationsZibang Zhang
School of Computer Science & Technology, Taiyuan University of Science and Technology, Taiyuan, China
7 shared publicationsHongyan Cui
School of Computer Science and Technology, Taiyuan University of Science and Technology, Taiyuan, 030024, China
6 shared publicationsQi Zhang
School of Computer Science & Technology, Taiyuan University of Science and Technology, Taiyuan, 030024, China
5 shared publicationsAidi Zhao
School of Computer Science & Technology, Taiyuan University of Science and Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China
4 shared publicationsMin Wang
School of Computer Science & Technology, Taiyuan University of Science and Technology, Taiyuan, China
4 shared publications
Latest Publications
- Open Access
- 24 August 2026
- Published by Springer Nature in npj Heritage Science
An ancient mural classification model with shallow texture enhancement and cross-layer attention aggregation
- 24 August 2026
- Published by Springer Nature in npj Heritage Science
Open AccessAn ancient mural classification model with shallow texture enhancement and cross-layer attention aggregation
- Open Access
- 5 May 2025
- Published by Springer Nature in npj Heritage Science
- Vol. 13 (1) , 1-14
Mural classification network based on the fusion of shallow feature enhancement and dense attention aggregation
- 5 May 2025
- Published by Springer Nature in npj Heritage Science
- Vol. 13 (1) , 1-14
Open AccessMural classification network based on the fusion of shallow feature enhancement and dense attention aggregation
- Open Access
- 19 December 2024
- Published by Public Library of Science (PLoS) in PLOS ONE
- Vol. 19 (12) , e0315621
Multibranch semantic image segmentation model based on edge optimization and category perception
In semantic image segmentation tasks, most methods fail to fully use the characteristics of different scales and levels but rather directly perform upsampling. This may cause some effective information to be mistaken for redundant information and discarded, which in turn causes object segmentation confusion. As a convolutional layer deepens, the loss of spatial detail information makes the segmentation effect achieved at the object boundary insufficiently accurate. To address the above problems, we propose an edge optimization and category-aware multibranch semantic segmentation network (ECMNet). First, an attention-guided multibranch fusion backbone network is used to connect features with different resolutions in parallel and perform multiscale information interaction to reduce the loss of spatial detail information. Second, a category perception module is used to learn category feature representations and guide the pixel classification process through an attention mechanism to optimize the resulting segmentation accuracy. Finally, an edge optimization module is used to integrate the edge features into the middle and the deep supervision layers of the network through an adaptive algorithm to enhance its ability to express edge features and optimize the edge segmentation effect. The experimental results show that the MIoU value reaches 79.2% on the Cityspaces dataset and 79.6% on the CamVid dataset, that the number of parameters is significantly lower than those of other models, and that the proposed method can effectively achieve improved semantic image segmentation performance and solve the partial category segmentation confusion problem, giving it certain application prospects.
- 19 December 2024
- Published by Public Library of Science (PLoS) in PLOS ONE
- Vol. 19 (12) , e0315621
Open AccessMultibranch semantic image segmentation model based on edge optimization and category perception
In semantic image segmentation tasks, most methods fail to fully use the characteristics of different scales and levels but rather directly perform upsampling. This may cause some effective information to be mistaken for redundant information and discarded, which in turn causes object segmentation confusion. As a convolutional layer deepens, the loss of spatial detail information makes the segmentation effect achieved at the object boundary insufficiently accurate. To address the above problems, we propose an edge optimization and category-aware multibranch semantic segmentation network (ECMNet). First, an attention-guided multibranch fusion backbone network is used to connect features with different resolutions in parallel and perform multiscale information interaction to reduce the loss of spatial detail information. Second, a category perception module is used to learn category feature representations and guide the pixel classification process through an attention mechanism to optimize the resulting segmentation accuracy. Finally, an edge optimization module is used to integrate the edge features into the middle and the deep supervision layers of the network through an adaptive algorithm to enhance its ability to express edge features and optimize the edge segmentation effect. The experimental results show that the MIoU value reaches 79.2% on the Cityspaces dataset and 79.6% on the CamVid dataset, that the number of parameters is significantly lower than those of other models, and that the proposed method can effectively achieve improved semantic image segmentation performance and solve the partial category segmentation confusion problem, giving it certain application prospects.
- Open Access
- 6 September 2024
- Published by Public Library of Science (PLoS) in PLOS ONE
- Vol. 19 (9) , e0307811
Two-stage mural image restoration using an edge-constrained attention mechanism
The current mainstream image restoration methods have difficulty fully learning the structure and color information of murals in mural image restoration tasks due to the limited size of the available datasets, resulting in problems such as structural loss and texture errors. This study proposes a two-stage mural restoration network based on an edge-constrained attention mechanism. This paper introduces additional sketches as inputs during the coarse restoration phase and incorporates a local edge loss function to enable the network to generate corresponding structural information based on the sketches. In the fine restoration phase, the calculation for the similarity between missing areas and known areas is optimized to enhance the consistency of the restoration results with the texture of the known areas. Furthermore, a structure-guided attention propagation block is introduced after adopting the attention mechanism. This block selectively integrates surrounding contextual information to update the attention score map, thereby enhancing the coherence and plausibility of the generated textures. The experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms the current mainstream restoration methods according to various assessment indices. The proposed method generates high-quality structural information according to user guidance information, and the repaired texture is highly visually consistent with that of the original mural, with few noticeable deviations. This study provides a new approach for mural restoration, which may positively impact cultural heritage protection and artistic restoration applications.
- 6 September 2024
- Published by Public Library of Science (PLoS) in PLOS ONE
- Vol. 19 (9) , e0307811
Open AccessTwo-stage mural image restoration using an edge-constrained attention mechanism
The current mainstream image restoration methods have difficulty fully learning the structure and color information of murals in mural image restoration tasks due to the limited size of the available datasets, resulting in problems such as structural loss and texture errors. This study proposes a two-stage mural restoration network based on an edge-constrained attention mechanism. This paper introduces additional sketches as inputs during the coarse restoration phase and incorporates a local edge loss function to enable the network to generate corresponding structural information based on the sketches. In the fine restoration phase, the calculation for the similarity between missing areas and known areas is optimized to enhance the consistency of the restoration results with the texture of the known areas. Furthermore, a structure-guided attention propagation block is introduced after adopting the attention mechanism. This block selectively integrates surrounding contextual information to update the attention score map, thereby enhancing the coherence and plausibility of the generated textures. The experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms the current mainstream restoration methods according to various assessment indices. The proposed method generates high-quality structural information according to user guidance information, and the repaired texture is highly visually consistent with that of the original mural, with few noticeable deviations. This study provides a new approach for mural restoration, which may positively impact cultural heritage protection and artistic restoration applications.
- Top Cited PapersOpen Access
- 15 May 2024
- Published by Springer Nature in Heritage Science
- Vol. 12 (1) , 1-13
Ancient mural dynasty recognition algorithm based on a neural network architecture search
A neural network model needs to be manually designed for ancient mural dynasty recognition, and this paper proposes an ancient mural dynasty recognition algorithm that is based on a neural architecture search (NAS). First, the structural edge information of mural images is extracted for use by the neural network model in recognizing mural missions. Second, an NAS algorithm that is based on contrast selection (CS) simplifies the architecture search to an incremental CS and then searches for the optimal network architecture on the mural dataset. Finally, the identified optimal network architecture is used for training and testing to complete the mural dynasty recognition task. The results show that the top accuracy of the proposed method on the mural dataset is 88.10%, the recall rate is 87.52%, and the precision rate is 87.69%. Each evaluation index used by the neural network model is superior to that of classical network models such as AlexNet and ResNet-50. Compared with NAS methods such as ASNG and MIGO, the accuracy of mural dynasty recognition is higher by an average of 4.27% when using the proposed method. The proposed method is verified on CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100, ImageNet16-120 and other datasets and achieves a good recognition accuracy in the NAS-bench-201 search space, which averages 93.26%, 70.73% and 45.34%, respectively, on the abovementioned datasets.
- 15 May 2024
- Published by Springer Nature in Heritage Science
- Vol. 12 (1) , 1-13
Top Cited PapersOpen AccessAncient mural dynasty recognition algorithm based on a neural network architecture search
A neural network model needs to be manually designed for ancient mural dynasty recognition, and this paper proposes an ancient mural dynasty recognition algorithm that is based on a neural architecture search (NAS). First, the structural edge information of mural images is extracted for use by the neural network model in recognizing mural missions. Second, an NAS algorithm that is based on contrast selection (CS) simplifies the architecture search to an incremental CS and then searches for the optimal network architecture on the mural dataset. Finally, the identified optimal network architecture is used for training and testing to complete the mural dynasty recognition task. The results show that the top accuracy of the proposed method on the mural dataset is 88.10%, the recall rate is 87.52%, and the precision rate is 87.69%. Each evaluation index used by the neural network model is superior to that of classical network models such as AlexNet and ResNet-50. Compared with NAS methods such as ASNG and MIGO, the accuracy of mural dynasty recognition is higher by an average of 4.27% when using the proposed method. The proposed method is verified on CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100, ImageNet16-120 and other datasets and achieves a good recognition accuracy in the NAS-bench-201 search space, which averages 93.26%, 70.73% and 45.34%, respectively, on the abovementioned datasets.
- Open Access
- 16 February 2024
- Published by Springer Nature in Heritage Science
- Vol. 12 (1) , 1-15
Ancient mural segmentation based on multiscale feature fusion and dual attention enhancement
To address the fuzzy segmentation boundaries, missing details, small target losses and low efficiency of traditional segmentation methods in ancient mural image segmentation scenarios, this paper proposes a mural segmentation model based on multiscale feature fusion and a dual attention-augmented segmentation model (MFAM). The model uses the MobileViT network, which integrates a coordinate attention mechanism, as the feature extraction backbone network. It attains global and local expression capabilities through self-attention, class convolution, and coordinate attention and focuses on location information to expand the receptive field and achieve improved feature extraction efficiency. An A_R_ASPP feature enhancement module is proposed for the attention-optimized residual atrous spatial pyramid pooling module. The module uses residual connections to solve the small target loss problem in murals caused by the excessive sampling rate of atrous convolution and uses a feature attention mechanism to adaptively adjust the feature map weight according to the channel importance levels. A dual attention-enhanced feature fusion module is proposed for multiscale decoder feature fusion to improve the mural segmentation effect. This module uses a cross-level aggregation strategy and an attention mechanism to weight the importance of different feature levels to obtain multilevel semantic feature representations. The model improves the mean intersection over union (MIoU) by 3.06% and the MPA by 1.81% on a mural dataset compared with other models. The model is proven to be effective at improving the segmentation details, efficiency and small target segmentation results produced for mural images, and a new method is proposed for segmenting ancient mural images.
- 16 February 2024
- Published by Springer Nature in Heritage Science
- Vol. 12 (1) , 1-15
Open AccessAncient mural segmentation based on multiscale feature fusion and dual attention enhancement
To address the fuzzy segmentation boundaries, missing details, small target losses and low efficiency of traditional segmentation methods in ancient mural image segmentation scenarios, this paper proposes a mural segmentation model based on multiscale feature fusion and a dual attention-augmented segmentation model (MFAM). The model uses the MobileViT network, which integrates a coordinate attention mechanism, as the feature extraction backbone network. It attains global and local expression capabilities through self-attention, class convolution, and coordinate attention and focuses on location information to expand the receptive field and achieve improved feature extraction efficiency. An A_R_ASPP feature enhancement module is proposed for the attention-optimized residual atrous spatial pyramid pooling module. The module uses residual connections to solve the small target loss problem in murals caused by the excessive sampling rate of atrous convolution and uses a feature attention mechanism to adaptively adjust the feature map weight according to the channel importance levels. A dual attention-enhanced feature fusion module is proposed for multiscale decoder feature fusion to improve the mural segmentation effect. This module uses a cross-level aggregation strategy and an attention mechanism to weight the importance of different feature levels to obtain multilevel semantic feature representations. The model improves the mean intersection over union (MIoU) by 3.06% and the MPA by 1.81% on a mural dataset compared with other models. The model is proven to be effective at improving the segmentation details, efficiency and small target segmentation results produced for mural images, and a new method is proposed for segmenting ancient mural images.
- Open Access
- 24 April 2023
- Published by Public Library of Science (PLoS) in PLOS ONE
- Vol. 18 (4) , e0284742
An improved defocusing adaptive style transfer method based on a stroke pyramid
Image style transfer aims to assign a specified artist’s style to a real image. However, most existing methods cannot generate textures of various thicknesses due to the rich semantic information of the input image. The image loses some semantic information through style transfer with a uniform stroke size. To address the above problems, we propose an improved multi-stroke defocus adaptive style transfer framework based on a stroke pyramid, which mainly fuses various stroke sizes in the image spatial dimension to enhance the image content interpretability. We expand the receptive field of each branch and then fuse the features generated by the multiple branches based on defocus degree. Finally, we add an additional loss term to enhance the structural features of the generated image. The proposed model is trained using the Common Objects in Context (COCO) and Synthetic Depth of Field (SYNDOF) datasets, and the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and structural similarity index (SSIM) are used to evaluate the overall quality of the output image and its structural similarity with the content image, respectively. To validate the feasibility of the proposed algorithm, we compare the average PSNR and SSIM values of the output of the modified model and those of the original model. The experimental results show that the modified model improves the PSNR and SSIM values of the outputs by 1.43 and 0.12 on average, respectively. Compared with the single-stroke style transfer method, the framework proposed in this study improves the readability of the output images with more abundant visual expression.
- 24 April 2023
- Published by Public Library of Science (PLoS) in PLOS ONE
- Vol. 18 (4) , e0284742
Open AccessAn improved defocusing adaptive style transfer method based on a stroke pyramid
Image style transfer aims to assign a specified artist’s style to a real image. However, most existing methods cannot generate textures of various thicknesses due to the rich semantic information of the input image. The image loses some semantic information through style transfer with a uniform stroke size. To address the above problems, we propose an improved multi-stroke defocus adaptive style transfer framework based on a stroke pyramid, which mainly fuses various stroke sizes in the image spatial dimension to enhance the image content interpretability. We expand the receptive field of each branch and then fuse the features generated by the multiple branches based on defocus degree. Finally, we add an additional loss term to enhance the structural features of the generated image. The proposed model is trained using the Common Objects in Context (COCO) and Synthetic Depth of Field (SYNDOF) datasets, and the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and structural similarity index (SSIM) are used to evaluate the overall quality of the output image and its structural similarity with the content image, respectively. To validate the feasibility of the proposed algorithm, we compare the average PSNR and SSIM values of the output of the modified model and those of the original model. The experimental results show that the modified model improves the PSNR and SSIM values of the outputs by 1.43 and 0.12 on average, respectively. Compared with the single-stroke style transfer method, the framework proposed in this study improves the readability of the output images with more abundant visual expression.
- Open Access
- 4 April 2023
- Published by Springer Nature in Heritage Science
- Vol. 11 (1) , 1-9
Zero-sample mural superresolution reconstruction for enhanced perceptual quality
Aiming at the problem of texture loss and poor perceptual quality in low-resolution mural images, this paper proposes a zero-sample mural superresolution reconstruction method called EPZSSR to enhance perceptual quality, and the specific model is obtained by training the image. The algorithm takes the zero-shot superresolution method as the framework, randomly cuts the original image into a 128 * 128 size, performs Gaussian blurring on the image, uses Lanczos interpolation to downsample the smooth image to reduce artifacts, and uses convolutional attention module and skip connection to optimize the network structure. SmoothL1Loss is used to enhance the robustness of the model, and the PI value is introduced as the perceptual quality evaluation index. The experimental results show that compared with other superresolution reconstruction algorithms, the peak signal-to-noise ratio of the algorithm in this paper is increased by 0.98–3.23 dB on average. The mural texture reconstruction effect is better, the PI value is reduced by 0.56 on average, the mural perception quality is better, and the running time is reduced by 89.68 s on average. It has a certain value for mural superresolution reconstruction.
- 4 April 2023
- Published by Springer Nature in Heritage Science
- Vol. 11 (1) , 1-9
Open AccessZero-sample mural superresolution reconstruction for enhanced perceptual quality
Aiming at the problem of texture loss and poor perceptual quality in low-resolution mural images, this paper proposes a zero-sample mural superresolution reconstruction method called EPZSSR to enhance perceptual quality, and the specific model is obtained by training the image. The algorithm takes the zero-shot superresolution method as the framework, randomly cuts the original image into a 128 * 128 size, performs Gaussian blurring on the image, uses Lanczos interpolation to downsample the smooth image to reduce artifacts, and uses convolutional attention module and skip connection to optimize the network structure. SmoothL1Loss is used to enhance the robustness of the model, and the PI value is introduced as the perceptual quality evaluation index. The experimental results show that compared with other superresolution reconstruction algorithms, the peak signal-to-noise ratio of the algorithm in this paper is increased by 0.98–3.23 dB on average. The mural texture reconstruction effect is better, the PI value is reduced by 0.56 on average, the mural perception quality is better, and the running time is reduced by 89.68 s on average. It has a certain value for mural superresolution reconstruction.
- Open Access
- 30 March 2023
- Published by Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) in IET Image Processing
- Vol. 17 (8) , 2336-2349
A generative adversarial network model fused with a self‐attention mechanism for the super‐resolution reconstruction of ancient murals
The problem that the texture details of low‐resolution (LR) digital images of ancient murals are ambiguous persists. To solve this problem, this study proposes a super‐resolution (SR) reconstruction method for fuzzy murals based on a generative adversarial network with self‐attention (SA). The network uses a blur kernel and realistic noise data to add blur and noise, respectively, to a high‐resolution (HR) image to obtain an original LR image. Then, a feature image with the same size as that of the input image is obtained through a SA module. Finally, the feature information extracted from the image is input into the high‐resolution image space by using a subpixel convolution layer to realize the image enlargement process from an LR to an HR. Experiments evaluate the proposed approach both objectively and subjectively. The objective evaluation results show that compared with other SR reconstruction algorithms, the proposed algorithm's peak signal‐to‐noise ratio (PSNR) is increased by 0.04 to 3.78 dB on average, and its structural similarity is increased by 0.002 to 0.191. A subjective perception evaluation shows that the developed algorithm can better reconstruct the texture details of murals, thus better meeting the visual perception needs of the public. The method proposed in this study can satisfactorily reconstruct the texture details of murals, which may provide technical guidance for the development of mural protection plans. Furthermore, it may be of certain practical significance for the SR reconstruction of ancient murals.
- 30 March 2023
- Published by Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) in IET Image Processing
- Vol. 17 (8) , 2336-2349
Open AccessA generative adversarial network model fused with a self‐attention mechanism for the super‐resolution reconstruction of ancient murals
The problem that the texture details of low‐resolution (LR) digital images of ancient murals are ambiguous persists. To solve this problem, this study proposes a super‐resolution (SR) reconstruction method for fuzzy murals based on a generative adversarial network with self‐attention (SA). The network uses a blur kernel and realistic noise data to add blur and noise, respectively, to a high‐resolution (HR) image to obtain an original LR image. Then, a feature image with the same size as that of the input image is obtained through a SA module. Finally, the feature information extracted from the image is input into the high‐resolution image space by using a subpixel convolution layer to realize the image enlargement process from an LR to an HR. Experiments evaluate the proposed approach both objectively and subjectively. The objective evaluation results show that compared with other SR reconstruction algorithms, the proposed algorithm's peak signal‐to‐noise ratio (PSNR) is increased by 0.04 to 3.78 dB on average, and its structural similarity is increased by 0.002 to 0.191. A subjective perception evaluation shows that the developed algorithm can better reconstruct the texture details of murals, thus better meeting the visual perception needs of the public. The method proposed in this study can satisfactorily reconstruct the texture details of murals, which may provide technical guidance for the development of mural protection plans. Furthermore, it may be of certain practical significance for the SR reconstruction of ancient murals.
- Open Access
- 9 May 2022
- Published by Springer Nature in Heritage Science
- Vol. 10 (1) , 1-14
An improved algorithm for superresolution reconstruction of ancient murals with a generative adversarial network based on asymmetric pyramid modules
Ancient Chinese murals are true portrayals of ancient Chinese life, but well-preserved murals are rare. Therefore, ancient mural preservation and repair are critical. To address the poor superresolution reconstruction of mural images with unclear textures and fuzzy details, we developed an improved generative adversarial network (GAN) algorithm based on asymmetric pyramid modules for ancient mural superresolution reconstruction. Asymmetric pyramid modules, which are composed of a series of dense compression units, were used to learn image features. To analyze the reconstructed image features, a perceptual loss function was integrated to optimize the model performance. The use of the improved algorithm for low-resolution mural images increased the image resolution while preserving their original feature details and textures, and the improvement effect was visually observed in terms of indices such as the peak signal-to-noise ratio and structural similarity. Compared with other superresolution-related algorithms, the proposed model increased the peak signal-to-noise ratio by 0.20–6.66 dB. The GAN-based mural superresolution reconstruction algorithm proposed in this study effectively improved the performance of reconstructed high-resolution mural images, which increases the significance of the reconstructed image for future research.
- 9 May 2022
- Published by Springer Nature in Heritage Science
- Vol. 10 (1) , 1-14
Open AccessAn improved algorithm for superresolution reconstruction of ancient murals with a generative adversarial network based on asymmetric pyramid modules
Ancient Chinese murals are true portrayals of ancient Chinese life, but well-preserved murals are rare. Therefore, ancient mural preservation and repair are critical. To address the poor superresolution reconstruction of mural images with unclear textures and fuzzy details, we developed an improved generative adversarial network (GAN) algorithm based on asymmetric pyramid modules for ancient mural superresolution reconstruction. Asymmetric pyramid modules, which are composed of a series of dense compression units, were used to learn image features. To analyze the reconstructed image features, a perceptual loss function was integrated to optimize the model performance. The use of the improved algorithm for low-resolution mural images increased the image resolution while preserving their original feature details and textures, and the improvement effect was visually observed in terms of indices such as the peak signal-to-noise ratio and structural similarity. Compared with other superresolution-related algorithms, the proposed model increased the peak signal-to-noise ratio by 0.20–6.66 dB. The GAN-based mural superresolution reconstruction algorithm proposed in this study effectively improved the performance of reconstructed high-resolution mural images, which increases the significance of the reconstructed image for future research.