Simone ZiniAssistant Professor

DISCo (Department of Informatics, Systems and Communication)
University of Milan-Bicocca
Viale Sarca 336, Building U14

Room 1008,  tel: 0266487826

Biography

Simone Zini is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Informatics, Systems and Communication (DISCo) of the University of Milano-Bicocca. He obtained his Bachelor Degree and Master Degree in Computer Science at University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy), respectively in 2015 and 2018, focusing on image processing and enhancement. In 2018 he worked in Tokyo, Japan, at NEC Corporation as a research intern, on the topic of Image denoising and enhancement, and obtained a research grant at the Imaging and Vision Laboratory of the University of Milano-Bicocca. He obtained his Ph.D. in 2022 at the University of Milano – Bicocca (Italy), where he is currently employed as assistant professor, after two years as post-doctoral researcher at National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN). His main topics of research are machine learning, image and signal processing and enhancement, computational photography and remote sensing . He is currently working on the AdvaNced Technologies for HumancentrEd Medicine (ANTEHM) project.

Publications

Journal Articles

6.

Bayesian nights: Optimizing night photography rendering with Bayesian derivative-free methods
(Simone Zini, Marco Buzzelli) In Pattern Recognition, volume 161, pp. 111314, 2025.

Download BibTex Doi 

@article{zini2025bayesian,
 author = {Zini, Simone and Buzzelli, Marco},
 year = {2025},
 pages = {111314},
 title = {Bayesian nights: Optimizing night photography rendering with Bayesian derivative-free methods},
 volume = {161},
 journal = {Pattern Recognition},
 url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031320324010653},
 pdf = {/download/zini2025bayesian.pdf},
 doi = {10.1016/j.patcog.2024.111314},
 issn = {0031-3203}}
5.

Deep Learning Hyperspectral Pansharpening on Large-Scale PRISMA Dataset
(Simone Zini, Mirko Paolo Barbato, Flavio Piccoli, Paolo Napoletano) In Remote Sensing, volume 16, number 12, pp. 2079, Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 2024.

BibTex 

@article{zini2024deep,
 author = {Zini, Simone and Barbato, Mirko Paolo and Piccoli, Flavio and Napoletano, Paolo},
 year = {2024},
 pages = {2079},
 title = {Deep Learning Hyperspectral Pansharpening on Large-Scale PRISMA Dataset},
 volume = {16},
 number = {12},
 publisher = {Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute},
 journal = {Remote Sensing}}
4.

Analysis of biases in automatic white balance datasets and methods
(Marco Buzzelli, Simone Zini, Simone Bianco, Gianluigi Ciocca, Raimondo Schettini, Mikhail Tchobanou) In Color Research & Application, 2023.

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@article{buzzelli2022analysis,
 author = {Buzzelli, Marco and Zini, Simone and Bianco, Simone and Ciocca, Gianluigi and Schettini, Raimondo and Tchobanou, Mikhail K},
 year = {2023},
 title = {Analysis of biases in automatic white balance datasets and methods},
 journal = {Color Research & Application},
 keywords = {automatic, white, balance, color, constancy, dataset, analysis, illuminant, estimation},
 url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/col.22822},
 pdf = {/download/buzzelli2022analysis.pdf},
 doi = {/10.1002/col.22822}}
3.

Laplacian encoder-decoder network for raindrop removal
(Simone Zini, Marco Buzzelli) In Pattern Recognition Letters, volume 158, pp. 24-33, 2022.

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@article{zini2022laplacian,
 author = {Zini, Simone and Buzzelli, Marco},
 year = {2022},
 pages = {24-33},
 title = {Laplacian encoder-decoder network for raindrop removal},
 volume = {158},
 journal = {Pattern Recognition Letters},
 url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167865522001143},
 pdf = {/download/2022_laplacian_encoder_decoder_network_for_raindrop_removal.pdf},
 doi = {10.1016/j.patrec.2022.04.016},
 issn = {0167-8655},
 projectref = {https://github.com/TheZino/Laplacian-Encoder-Decoder-Raindrop-Removal}}
2.

COCOA: Combining Color Constancy Algorithms for Images and Videos
(Simone Zini, Marco Buzzelli, Simone Bianco, Raimondo Schettini) In IEEE Transactions on Computational Imaging, pp. 1-14, 2022.

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@article{zini2022cocoa,
 author = {Zini, Simone and Buzzelli, Marco and Bianco, Simone and Schettini, Raimondo},
 year = {2022},
 pages = {1-14},
 title = {COCOA: Combining Color Constancy Algorithms for Images and Videos},
 journal = {IEEE Transactions on Computational Imaging},
 url = {https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9874990},
 pdf = {/download/COCOA_Combining_Color_Constancy_Algorithms_for_Images_and_Videos.pdf},
 doi = {10.1109/TCI.2022.3203889},
 projectref = {https://github.com/TheZino/COCOA-COmbining-COlor-constancy-Algorithms}}
1.

Deep Residual Autoencoder for Blind Universal JPEG Restoration
(Simone Zini, Simone Bianco, Raimondo Schettini) In IEEE Access, volume 8, pp. 63283-63294, IEEE, 2020.

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@article{zini2020deep,
 author = {Zini, Simone and Bianco, Simone and Schettini, Raimondo},
 year = {2020},
 pages = {63283-63294},
 title = {Deep Residual Autoencoder for Blind Universal JPEG Restoration},
 volume = {8},
 publisher = {IEEE},
 journal = {IEEE Access},
 pdf = {/download/Deep_Residual_Autoencoder_for_Blind_Universal_JPEG_Resoration.pdf},
 doi = {https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2020.2984387}}

Conference Papers

12.

NTIRE 2024 Challenge on Night Photography Rendering
(Egor Ershov, Artyom Panshin, Oleg Karasev, Sergey Korchagin, Shepelev Lev, [...], Simone Zini, Claudio Rota, Marco Buzzelli, Simone Bianco, Raimondo Schettini, [...]) In Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) Workshops, pp. 6702-6711, 2024.

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@inproceedings{ershov2024ntire,
 author = {Ershov, Egor and Panshin, Artyom and Karasev, Oleg and Korchagin, Sergey and Lev, Shepelev and [...], and Zini, Simone and Rota, Claudio and Buzzelli, Marco and Bianco, Simone and Schettini, Raimondo and [...],},
 year = {2024},
 month = {6},
 year = {2024},
 pages = {6702-6711},
 title = {NTIRE 2024 Challenge on Night Photography Rendering},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) Workshops},
 url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.13007},
 pdf = {https://arxiv.org/pdf/2406.13007}}
11.

RGB illuminant compensation using multispectral information
(Mirko Agarla, Simone Bianco, Marco Buzzelli, Luca Cogo, Ilaria Erba, Matteo Kolyszko, Raimondo Schettini, Simone Zini) In CdC2024 - Color Conference, pp. 181-186, 2024.

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@inproceedings{agarla2024rgb,
 author = {Agarla, Mirko and Bianco, Simone and Buzzelli, Marco and Cogo, Luca and Erba, Ilaria and Kolyszko, Matteo and Schettini, Raimondo and Zini, Simone},
 year = {2024},
 pages = {181-186},
 title = {RGB illuminant compensation using multispectral information},
 organization = {Gruppo del Colore -- Associazione Italiana Colore},
 booktitle = {CdC2024 - Color Conference},
 url = {https://www.rcasb.eu/index.php/RCASB/catalog/book/14},
 pdf = {/download/agarla2024rgb.pdf}}
10.

Planckian Jitter: countering the color-crippling effects of color jitter on self-supervised training
(Simone Zini, Alex Gomez-Villa, Marco Buzzelli, Bartłomiej Twardowski, Andrew Bagdanov, Joost Van De Weijer) In The Eleventh International Conference on Learning Representations, 2023.

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@inproceedings{zini2023planckian,
 author = {Zini, Simone and Gomez-Villa, Alex and Buzzelli, Marco and Twardowski, Bartłomiej and Bagdanov, Andrew D and Van De Weijer, Joost},
 year = {2023},
 title = {Planckian Jitter: countering the color-crippling effects of color jitter on self-supervised training},
 booktitle = {The Eleventh International Conference on Learning Representations},
 url = {https://openreview.net/forum?id=Pia70sP2Oi1},
 pdf = {https://arxiv.org/pdf/2202.07993.pdf}}
9.

Shallow Camera Pipeline for Night Photography Enhancement
(Simone Zini, Claudio Rota, Marco Buzzelli, Simone Bianco, Raimondo Schettini) In Image Analysis and Processing – ICIAP 2023: 22nd International Conference, ICIAP 2023, Udine, Italy, September 11–15, 2023, Proceedings, Part I, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp. 51–61, Springer-Verlag, 2023.

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@inproceedings{zini2023shallow,
 author = {Zini, Simone and Rota, Claudio and Buzzelli, Marco and Bianco, Simone and Schettini, Raimondo},
 year = {2023},
 pages = {51–61},
 title = {Shallow Camera Pipeline for Night Photography Enhancement},
 publisher = {Springer-Verlag},
 address = {Berlin, Heidelberg},
 isbn = {978-3-031-43147-0},
 booktitle = {Image Analysis and Processing – ICIAP 2023: 22nd International Conference, ICIAP 2023, Udine, Italy, September 11–15, 2023, Proceedings, Part I},
 url = {https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1007/978-3-031-43148-7_5},
 pdf = {/download/ICIAP_2023___Shallow_camera_pipeline_for_night_photography_enhancement.pdf},
 doi = {10.1007/978-3-031-43148-7_5}}
8.

Back to the future: a night photography rendering ISP without deep learning
(Simone Zini, Claudio Rota, Marco Buzzelli, Simone Bianco, Raimondo Schettini) In Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, pp. 1465-1473, 2023.

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@inproceedings{zini2023back,
 author = {Zini, Simone and Rota, Claudio and Buzzelli, Marco and Bianco, Simone and Schettini, Raimondo},
 year = {2023},
 pages = {1465-1473},
 title = {Back to the future: a night photography rendering ISP without deep learning},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition},
 url = {https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10208764},
 pdf = {/download/Zini_Back_to_the_Future_A_Night_Photography_Rendering_ISP_Without_CVPRW_2023_paper.pdf},
 doi = {10.1109/CVPRW59228.2023.00151}}
7.

NTIRE 2023 Challenge on Night Photography Rendering
(Alina Shutova, Egor Ershov, Georgy Perevozchikov, Ivan Ermakov, Nikola Banić, [...], Simone Zini, Claudio Rota, Marco Buzzelli, Simone Bianco, Raimondo Schettini, [...]) In 2023 IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops (CVPRW), pp. 1982-1993, 2023.

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@inproceedings{shutova2023ntire,
 author = {Shutova, Alina and Ershov, Egor and Perevozchikov, Georgy and Ermakov, Ivan and Banić, Nikola and [...], and Zini, Simone and Rota, Claudio and Buzzelli, Marco and Bianco, Simone and Schettini, Raimondo and [...],},
 year = {2023},
 pages = {1982-1993},
 title = {NTIRE 2023 Challenge on Night Photography Rendering},
 booktitle = {2023 IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops (CVPRW)},
 url = {https://openaccess.thecvf.com/content/CVPR2023W/NTIRE/html/Shutova_NTIRE_2023_Challenge_on_Night_Photography_Rendering_CVPRW_2023_paper.html},
 pdf = {/download/Shutova_NTIRE_2023_Challenge_on_Night_Photography_Rendering_CVPRW_2023_paper.pdf},
 doi = {10.1109/CVPRW59228.2023.00192}}
6.

NTIRE 2022 Challenge on Night Photography Rendering
(Egor Ershov, Alex Savchik, Denis Shepelev, Nikola Banić, Michael Brown, [...], Simone Zini, Claudio Rota, Marco Buzzelli, Simone Bianco, Raimondo Schettini, [...]) In 2022 IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops (CVPRW), pp. 1286-1299, 2022.

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@inproceedings{ershov2022ntire,
 author = {Ershov, Egor and Savchik, Alex and Shepelev, Denis and Banić, Nikola and Brown, Michael S and [...], and Zini, Simone and Rota, Claudio and Buzzelli, Marco and Bianco, Simone and Schettini, Raimondo and [...],},
 year = {2022},
 pages = {1286-1299},
 title = {NTIRE 2022 Challenge on Night Photography Rendering},
 booktitle = {2022 IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops (CVPRW)},
 pdf = {/download/Ershov-2022-CVPR-AAM.pdf},
 doi = {10.1109/CVPRW56347.2022.00135}}
5.

A Framework for Contrast Enhancement Algorithms Optimization
(Simone Zini, Marco Buzzelli, Simone Bianco, Raimondo Schettini) In 2022 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), pp. 1431-1435, 2022.

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@inproceedings{zini2022framework,
 author = {Zini, Simone and Buzzelli, Marco and Bianco, Simone and Schettini, Raimondo},
 year = {2022},
 pages = {1431-1435},
 title = {A Framework for Contrast Enhancement Algorithms Optimization},
 booktitle = {2022 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP)},
 pdf = {/download/zini2022framework.pdf},
 doi = {10.1109/ICIP46576.2022.9897184},
 projectref = {https://github.com/TheZino/contrast-algo-opt-framework}}
4.

On the Impact of Rain over Semantic Segmentation of Street Scenes
(Simone Zini, Marco Buzzelli) In Pattern Recognition. ICPR International Workshops and Challenges, Cham, pp. 597-610, Springer International Publishing, 2021.

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@inproceedings{zini2021impact,
 author = {Zini, Simone and Buzzelli, Marco},
 year = {2021},
 pages = {597-610},
 title = {On the Impact of Rain over Semantic Segmentation of Street Scenes},
 publisher = {Springer International Publishing},
 address = {Cham},
 isbn = {978-3-030-68780-9},
 booktitle = {Pattern Recognition. ICPR International Workshops and Challenges},
 pdf = {/download/2020c_On_the_impact_of_rain_over_semantic_segmentation_of_street_scenes.pdf},
 doi = {10.1007/978-3-030-68780-9_46}}
3.

Analysis of Biases in Automatic White Balance Datasets
(Simone Bianco, Marco Buzzelli, Gianluigi Ciocca, Raimondo Schettini, Mikhail Tchobanou, Simone Zini) In Proceedings of the International Colour Association (AIC) Conference 2021. Milan, Italy. AIC, pp. 233-238, 2021.

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@inproceedings{bianco2021analysisbiases,
 author = {Bianco, Simone and Buzzelli, Marco and Ciocca, Gianluigi and Schettini, Raimondo and Tchobanou, Mikhail and Zini, Simone},
 year = {2021},
 pages = {233-238},
 title = {Analysis of Biases in Automatic White Balance Datasets},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Colour Association (AIC) Conference 2021. Milan, Italy. AIC},
 pdf = {/download/AIC2021_analysis.pdf}}
2.

CNN-based Rain Reduction in Street View Images
(Simone Zini, Simone Bianco, Raimondo Schettini) In London Imaging Meeting, volume 2020, number 1, pp. 78-81, 2020.

BibTex 

@inproceedings{zini2020cnn,
 author = {Zini, Simone and Bianco, Simone and Schettini, Raimondo},
 year = {2020},
 pages = {78-81},
 title = {CNN-based Rain Reduction in Street View Images},
 volume = {2020},
 number = {1},
 organization = {Society for Imaging Science and Technology},
 booktitle = {London Imaging Meeting}}
1.

Artifact-Free Thin Cloud Removal Using Gans
(Takahiro Toizumi, Simone Zini, Kazutoshi Sagi, Eiji Kaneko, Masato Tsukada, Raimondo Schettini) In 2019 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), pp. 3596-3600, 2019.

BibTex 

@inproceedings{toizumi2019artifact,
 author = {Toizumi, Takahiro and Zini, Simone and Sagi, Kazutoshi and Kaneko, Eiji and Tsukada, Masato and Schettini, Raimondo},
 year = {2019},
 pages = {3596-3600},
 title = {Artifact-Free Thin Cloud Removal Using Gans},
 organization = {IEEE},
 booktitle = {2019 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP)}}