Quantum-enhanced Computer Vision: Going Beyond Classical Algorithms

Quantum-enhanced Computer Vision (QeCV) is a new research field at the intersection of computer vision, optimisation theory, machine learning and quantum computing. It has high potential to transform how visual signals are processed and interpreted with the help of quantum computing that leverages quantum-mechanical effects in computations inaccessible to classical (i.e. non-quantum) computers. In scenarios where existing non-quantum methods cannot find a solution in a reasonable time or compute only approximate solutions, quantum computers can provide, among others, advantages in terms of better time scalability for multiple problem classes. Parametrised quantum circuits can also become, in the long term, a considerable alternative to classical neural networks in computer vision. However, specialised and fundamentally new algorithms must be developed to enable compatibility with quantum hardware and unveil the potential of quantum computational paradigms in computer vision. This survey contributes to the existing literature on QeCV with a holistic review of this research field. It is designed as a quantum computing reference for the computer vision community, targeting computer vision students, scientists and readers with related backgrounds who want to familiarise themselves with QeCV. We provide a comprehensive introduction to QeCV, its specifics, and methodologies for formulations compatible with quantum hardware and QeCV methods, leveraging two main quantum computational paradigms, i.e. gate-based quantum computing and quantum annealing. We elaborate on the operational principles of quantum computers and the available tools to access, program and simulate them in the context of QeCV. Finally, we review existing quantum computing tools and learning materials and discuss aspects related to publishing and reviewing QeCV papers, open challenges and potential social implications.

Quantum Visual Fields with Neural Amplitude Encoding

Quantum Implicit Neural Representations (QINRs) include components for learning and execution on gate-based quantum computers. While QINRs recently emerged as a promising new paradigm, many challenges concerning their architecture and ansatz design, the utility of quantum-mechanical properties, training efficiency and the interplay with classical modules remain. This paper advances the field by introducing a new type of QINR for 2D image and 3D geometric field learning, which we collectively refer to as Quantum Visual Field (QVF). QVF encodes classical data into quantum statevectors using neural amplitude encoding grounded in a learnable energy manifold, ensuring meaningful Hilbert space embeddings. Our ansatz follows a fully entangled design of learnable parametrised quantum circuits, with quantum (unitary) operations performed in the real Hilbert space, resulting in numerically stable training with fast convergence. QVF does not rely on classical post-processing -- in contrast to the previous QINR learning approach -- and directly employs projective measurement to extract learned signals encoded in the ansatz. Experiments on a quantum hardware simulator demonstrate that QVF outperforms the existing quantum approach and widely used classical foundational baselines in terms of visual representation accuracy across various metrics and model characteristics, such as learning of high-frequency details. We also show applications of QVF in 2D and 3D field completion and 3D shape interpolation, highlighting its practical potential.