Evaluating multi-class learning strategies in a hierarchical framework for object detection
Marko Boben, Sanja Fidler and Aleš Leonardis
In: 23rd Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems 2009, 7-10 Dec 2009, Vancouver, British Columbia Canada.

Abstract

Multi-class object learning and detection is a challenging problem due to the large number of object classes and their high visual variability. Specialized detectors usually excel in performance, while joint representations optimize sharing and reduce inference time — but are complex to train. Conveniently, sequential class learning cuts down training time by transferring existing knowledge to novel classes, but cannot fully exploit the shareability of features among object classes and might depend on ordering of classes during learning. In hierarchical frameworks these issues have been little explored. In this paper, we provide a rigorous experimental analysis of various multiple object class learning strategies within a generative hierarchical framework. Specifically, we propose, evaluate and compare three important types of multi-class learning: 1.) independent training of individual categories, 2.) joint training of classes, and 3.) sequential learning of classes. We explore and compare their computational behavior (space and time) and detection performance as a function of the number of learned object classes on several recognition datasets. We show that sequential training achieves the best trade-off between inference and training times at a comparable detection performance and could thus be used to learn the classes on a larger scale.

[Edit]