Region Detection Rate: An Applied Measure for Surface Defect Localization

The automatic localization and classification of defects on surfaces helps to ensure the quality of industrially manufactured products. For the development of such automatic systems, a measure is needed that allows a profound optimization and comparison. However, there is currently no measure dedicated to surface defect localization in particular and measures from related fields are unsuitable. Thus, we present the Region Detection Rate (RDR) which is specialized on defect localization since it is evaluated in a defect-wise manner. It entails a set of rules that define the circumstances under which a defect is considered detected and a prediction is considered a false positive. The usability of the RDR is qualitatively demonstrated on examples from three different datasets, one of which has been annotated as part of this work. We hope that the new measure supports the development of future automatic surface defect localization systems and to raise a discussion about the suitability of measures with regard to this task.