Multi-Class Image Labeling with Top-Down Segmentation and Generalized Robust $P^N$ Potentials

We propose a novel formulation for the scene labeling problem which is able to combine object detections with pixel-level information in a Conditional Random Field (CRF) framework. Since object detection and multi-class image labeling are mutually informative problems, pixel-wise segmentation can benefit from powerful object detectors and vice versa. The main contribution of the current work lies in the incorporation of topdown object segmentations as generalized robust P N potentials into the CRF formulation. These potentials present a principled manner to convey soft object segmentations into a unified energy minimization framework, enabling joint optimization and thus mutual benefit for both problems. As our results show, the proposed approach outperforms the state-of-the-art methods on the categories for which object detections are available. Quantitative and qualitative experiments show the effectiveness of the proposed method.