{"title":"A Novel Shape Guided Transformer Network for Instance Segmentation in Remote Sensing Images","authors":"Dawen Yu;Shunping Ji","doi":"10.1109/JSTARS.2025.3550460","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Instance segmentation performance in remote sensing images (RSIs) is significantly affected by two issues: how to extract accurate boundaries of objects from remote imaging through the dynamic atmosphere, and how to integrate the mutual information of related object instances scattered over a vast spatial region. In this study, we propose a novel shape guided transformer network (SGTN) to accurately extract objects at the instance level. Inspired by the global contextual modeling capacity of the self-attention mechanism, we propose an effective transformer encoder termed LSwin, which incorporates vertical and horizontal 1-D global self-attention mechanisms to obtain better global-perception capacity for RSIs than the popular local-shifted-window based swin transformer. To achieve accurate instance mask segmentation, we introduce a shape guidance module (SGM) to emphasize the object boundary and shape information. The combination of SGM, which emphasizes the local detail information, and LSwin, which focuses on the global context relationships, achieve excellent RSI instance segmentation. Their effectiveness was validated through comprehensive ablation experiments. Especially, LSwin is proven better than the popular ResNet and swin transformer encoders at the same level of efficiency. Compared to other instance segmentation methods, our SGTN achieves the highest average precision scores on two single-class public datasets (WHU dataset and BITCC dataset) and a multiclass public dataset (NWPU VHR-10 dataset).","PeriodicalId":13116,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing","volume":"18 ","pages":"8325-8339"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=10923715","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing","FirstCategoryId":"5","ListUrlMain":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10923715/","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ENGINEERING, ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONIC","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Instance segmentation performance in remote sensing images (RSIs) is significantly affected by two issues: how to extract accurate boundaries of objects from remote imaging through the dynamic atmosphere, and how to integrate the mutual information of related object instances scattered over a vast spatial region. In this study, we propose a novel shape guided transformer network (SGTN) to accurately extract objects at the instance level. Inspired by the global contextual modeling capacity of the self-attention mechanism, we propose an effective transformer encoder termed LSwin, which incorporates vertical and horizontal 1-D global self-attention mechanisms to obtain better global-perception capacity for RSIs than the popular local-shifted-window based swin transformer. To achieve accurate instance mask segmentation, we introduce a shape guidance module (SGM) to emphasize the object boundary and shape information. The combination of SGM, which emphasizes the local detail information, and LSwin, which focuses on the global context relationships, achieve excellent RSI instance segmentation. Their effectiveness was validated through comprehensive ablation experiments. Especially, LSwin is proven better than the popular ResNet and swin transformer encoders at the same level of efficiency. Compared to other instance segmentation methods, our SGTN achieves the highest average precision scores on two single-class public datasets (WHU dataset and BITCC dataset) and a multiclass public dataset (NWPU VHR-10 dataset).
期刊介绍:
The IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing addresses the growing field of applications in Earth observations and remote sensing, and also provides a venue for the rapidly expanding special issues that are being sponsored by the IEEE Geosciences and Remote Sensing Society. The journal draws upon the experience of the highly successful “IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing” and provide a complementary medium for the wide range of topics in applied earth observations. The ‘Applications’ areas encompasses the societal benefit areas of the Global Earth Observations Systems of Systems (GEOSS) program. Through deliberations over two years, ministers from 50 countries agreed to identify nine areas where Earth observation could positively impact the quality of life and health of their respective countries. Some of these are areas not traditionally addressed in the IEEE context. These include biodiversity, health and climate. Yet it is the skill sets of IEEE members, in areas such as observations, communications, computers, signal processing, standards and ocean engineering, that form the technical underpinnings of GEOSS. Thus, the Journal attracts a broad range of interests that serves both present members in new ways and expands the IEEE visibility into new areas.