Abstract: Visual content is being increasingly transmitted and consumed by machines rather than humans to perform automated content analysis tasks. In this paper, we propose an image preprocessor that optimizes the input image for machine consumption prior to encoding by an off-the-shelf codec designed for human consumption. To achieve a better trade-off between the accuracy of the machine analysis task and bitrate, we propose leveraging pre-extracted semantic information to improve the preprocessor’s ability to accurately identify and filter out task-irrelevant information. Furthermore, we propose a two-part loss function to optimize the preprocessor, consisted of a rate-task performance loss and a semantic distillation loss, which helps the reconstructed image obtain more information that contributes to the accuracy of the task. Experiments show that the proposed preprocessor can save up to 48.83% bitrate compared with the method without the preprocessor, and save up to 36.24% bitrate compared to existing preprocessors for machine vision.

Abstract: Multimodal image fusion allows the combination of information from different modalities, which is useful for tasks such as object detection, edge detection, and tracking, to name a few. Using the fused representation for applications results in better task performance. There are several image fusion approaches, which have been summarized in surveys. However, the existing surveys focus on image fusion approaches where the application on the loop of multimodal image fusion is not considered. On the contrary, this study summarizes deep learning-based multimodal image fusion for computer vision (e.g., object detection) and image processing applications (e.g., semantic segmentation), that is, approaches where the application module leverages the multimodal fusion process to enhance the final result. Firstly, we introduce image fusion and the existing general frameworks for image fusion tasks such as multifocus, multiexposure and multimodal. Then, we describe the multimodal image fusion approaches. Next, we review the state-of-the-art deep learning multimodal image fusion approaches for vision applications. Finally, we conclude our survey with the trends of task-driven multimodal image fusion.

Abstract: This paper unveils the discoveries and outcomes of the inaugural iteration of the Multi-modal Aerial View Image Challenge (MAVIC) aimed at image translation. The primary objective of this competition is to stimulate research efforts towards the development of models capable of translating co-aligned images between multiple modalities. To accomplish the task of image translation, the competition utilizes images obtained from both synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and electro-optical (EO) sources. Specifically, the challenge centers on the translation from the SAR modality to the EO modality, an area of research that has garnered attention. The inaugural challenge demonstrates the feasibility of the task. The dataset utilized in this challenge is derived from the UNIfied COincident Optical and Radar for recognitioN (UNICORN) dataset. We introduce an new version of the UNICORN dataset that is focused on enabling the sensor translation task. Performance evaluation is conducted using a combination of measures to ensure high fidelity and high accuracy translations.

Abstract: This paper presents the findings and results of the third edition of the Multi-modal Aerial View Object Classification (MAVOC) challenge in a detailed and comprehensive manner. The challenge consists of two tracks. The primary aim of both tracks is to encourage research into building recognition models that utilize both synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and electro-optical (EO) imagery. Participating teams are encouraged to develop multi-modal approaches that incorporate complementary information from both domains. While the 2021 challenge demonstrated the feasibility of combining both modalities, the 2022 challenge expanded on the capability of multi-modal models. The 2023 challenge introduces a refined version of the UNICORN dataset and demonstrates significant improvements made. The 2023 challenge adopts an updated UNIfied CO-incident Optical and Radar for recognitioN (UNICORN V2) dataset and competition format. Two tasks are featured: SAR classification and SAR + EO classification. In addition to measuring accuracy of models, we also introduce out-of-distribution measures to encourage model robustness.The majority of this paper is dedicated to discussing the top performing methods and evaluating their performance on our blind test set. It is worth noting that all of the top ten teams outperformed the Resnet-50 baseline. The top team for SAR classification achieved a 173% performance improvement over the baseline, while the top team for SAR + EO classification achieved a 175% improvement.

Abstract: We investigate the problem of incremental learning for object counting, where a method must learn to count a variety of object classes from a sequence of datasets. A naïve approach to incremental object counting would suffer from catastrophic forgetting, where it would suffer from a dramatic performance drop on previous tasks. In this paper, we propose a new exemplar-free functional regularization method, called Density Map Distillation (DMD). During training, we introduce a new counter head for each task and introduce a distillation loss to prevent forgetting of previous tasks. Additionally, we introduce a cross-task adaptor that projects the features of the current backbone to the previous backbone. This projector allows for the learning of new features while the backbone retains the relevant features for previous tasks. Finally, we set up experiments of incremental learning for counting new objects. Results confirm that our method greatly reduces catastrophic forgetting and outperforms existing methods.

Abstract: Face anti-spoofing (FAS) is an essential mechanism for safeguarding the integrity of automated face recognition systems. Despite substantial advancements, the generalization of existing approaches to real-world applications remains challenging. This limitation can be attributed to the scarcity and lack of diversity in publicly available FAS datasets, which often leads to overfitting during training or saturation during testing. In terms of quantity, the number of spoof subjects is a critical determinant. Most datasets comprise fewer than 2,000 subjects. With regard to diversity, the majority of datasets consist of spoof samples collected in controlled environments using repetitive, mechanical processes. This data collection methodology results in homogenized samples and a dearth of scenario diversity. To address these shortcomings, we introduce the Wild Face Anti-Spoofing (WFAS) dataset, a large-scale, diverse FAS dataset collected in unconstrained settings. Our dataset encompasses 853,729 images of 321,751 spoof subjects and 529,571 images of 148,169 live subjects, representing a substantial increase in quantity. Moreover, our dataset incorporates spoof data obtained from the internet, spanning a wide array of scenarios and various commercial sensors, including 17 presentation attacks (PAs) that encompass both 2D and 3D forms. This novel data collection strategy markedly enhances FAS data diversity. Leveraging the WFAS dataset and Protocol 1 (Known-Type), we host the Wild Face Anti-Spoofing Challenge at the CVPR2023 workshop. Additionally, we meticulously evaluate representative methods using Protocol 1 and Protocol 2 (Unknown-Type). Through an in-depth examination of the challenge outcomes and benchmark baselines, we provide insightful analyses and propose potential avenues for future research. The dataset is released under Insightface 1 .

Abstract: Dual-camera systems commonly employed in surveillance serve as the foundation for RGB-infrared (IR) cross-modality person re-identification (ReID). However, significant modality differences give rise to inferior performance compared to single-modality scenarios. Furthermore, most existing studies in this area rely on supervised training with meticulously labeled datasets. Labeling RGB-IR image pairs is more complex than labeling conventional image data, and deploying pretrained models on unlabeled datasets can lead to catastrophic performance degradation. In contrast to previous solutions that focus solely on cross-modality or domain adaptation issues, this article presents an end-to-end unsupervised domain adaptation (UDA) framework for the cross-modality person ReID, which can simultaneously address both of these challenges. This model employs source domain classes, target domain clusters, and unclustered instance samples for the training, maximizing the comprehensive use of the dataset. Moreover, it addresses the problem of mismatched clustering labels between the two modalities in the target domain by incorporating a label matching module that reassigns reliable clusters with labels, ensuring correspondence between different modality labels. We construct the loss function by incorporating distinctiveness loss and multiplicity loss, both of which are determined by the similarity of neighboring features in the predicted feature space and the difference between distant features. This approach enables efficient feature clustering and cluster class assignment to occur concurrently. Eight UDA cross-modality person ReID experiments are conducted on three real datasets and six synthetic datasets. The experimental results unequivocally demonstrate that the proposed model outperforms the existing state-of-the-art algorithms to a significant degree. Notably, in RegDB → RegDB_light, the Rank-1 accuracy exhibits a remarkable improvement of 8.24%.

Abstract: On end-to-end driving, human driving demonstrations are used to train perception-based driving models by imitation learning. This process is supervised on vehicle signals (e.g., steering angle, acceleration) but does not require extra costly supervision (human labeling of sensor data). As a representative of such vision-based end-to-end driving models, CILRS is commonly used as a baseline to compare with new driving models. So far, some latest models achieve better performance than CILRS by using expensive sensor suites and/or by using large amounts of human-labeled data for training. Given the difference in performance, one may think that it is not worth pursuing vision-based pure end-to-end driving. However, we argue that this approach still has great value and potential considering cost and maintenance. In this paper, we present CIL++, which improves on CILRS by both processing higher-resolution images using a human-inspired HFOV as an inductive bias and incorporating a proper attention mechanism. CIL++ achieves competitive performance compared to models which are more costly to develop. We propose to replace CILRS with CIL++ as a strong vision-based pure end-to-end driving baseline supervised by only vehicle signals and trained by conditional imitation learning.