The Diffuse or Sharpen module in the master version of Darktable is terrific and can be used for a whole variety of purposes.
It seems Google has taken up the technology
The great difference between DT and Google is that I can see DT improving it and using it more widely. I expect Google to sunset it in 18 months or so,
I’m not sure if there is any similarity between the darktable module and the Google paper, but the Google paper describes a machine learning model trained on actual images. I don’t think the darktable module does anything related to machine learning.
Citation
Google paper describes a machine learning model trained on actual images…
Actual average internet image teaches the best way to make sh…