Instance Segmentation

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Overview

Instance segmentation finds individual objects, distinguishes them from one another, and traces their boundaries, supporting tasks such as counting cells, inspecting products, and guiding robots. Common approaches include two-stage models such as Mask R-CNN, one-stage YOLO models, and query-based transformers such as Mask2Former; video methods add tracking or mask propagation to preserve identities across frames. Foundation models such as SAM can be adapted with prompts, while weak supervision, synthetic data, and self-supervised learning aim to reduce the cost of pixel-level annotations. Performance is tested on benchmarks such as COCO, LVIS, and YouTube-VIS, but crowded or occluded objects, fine boundaries, domain shifts, and the trade-off between accuracy and inference speed remain difficult.

Latest papers

CardsList

163 papers19 papers in the last four weeks, down 14% on the four weeks before. 0.1% of all new papers.

  1. PlankFormer: Robust Plankton Instance Segmentation via MAE-Pretrained Vision Transformers and Pseudo Community Image Generation

    Apr 20, 2026Masaharu Miyazaki, Yurie Otake, Koichi Ito +3Instance SegmentationSynthetic Data Generation

    Graduate School of Information Sciences, Tohoku University 6-6-05, Aramaki Aza Aoba, Sendai, 9808579, Japan. · The Center for Ecological Research, Kyoto University, 2–509–3, Hirano, Otsu-shi, Shiga-ken, 5202113, Japan. · Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University, 6–3, Aramaki Aza Aoba, Aoba-ku, Sendai-shi, 9808578, Japan.

  2. A deep learning framework for glomeruli segmentation with boundary attention

    Apr 15, 2026Behnaz Elhaminia, Catherine King, Jiaqi Lv +5Histopathology Image SegmentationMedical Image Segmentation

    Tissue Image Analytics (TIA) Centre, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Warwick, UK · Dept. of Immunology and Immunotherapy, University of Birmingham, UK · Renal Unit, Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, UHB NHS Foundation Trust, UK +2

  3. Granularity-Aware Transfer for Tree Instance Segmentation in Synthetic and Real Forests

    Apr 15, 2026Pankaj Deoli, Atef Tej, Anmol Ashri +2Instance SegmentationSynthetic-to-Real Domain Adaptation

    Robotics Research Lab, University of Kaiserslautern-Landau, Kaiserslautern, Germany · University of Kaiserslautern-Landau, Kaiserslautern, Germany

  4. VGGT-Segmentor: Geometry-Enhanced Cross-View Segmentation

    Apr 15, 2026Yulu Gao, Bohao Zhang, Zongheng Tang +3Image SegmentationInstance Segmentation

    Hangzhou International Innovation Institute of Beihang University · Beihang University

  5. Cell Instance Segmentation via Multi-Task Image-to-Image Schrödinger Bridge

    Apr 14, 2026Hayato Inoue, Shota Harada, Shumpei Takezaki +1Instance SegmentationHistopathology Image Segmentation

    Dept. of Information Science and Technology, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

  6. Self-supervised Pretraining of Cell Segmentation Models

    Apr 12, 2026Kaden Stillwagon, Alexandra Dunnum VandeLoo, Benjamin Magondu +1Instance SegmentationMicroscopy Image Analysis

    School of Computer Science, Georgia Institute of Technology · School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology · Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology +1

  7. Identity-Aware U-Net: Fine-grained Cell Segmentation via Identity-Aware Representation Learning

    Apr 7, 2026Rui XiaoInstance SegmentationU-Net

    South China University of Technology

  8. Training a Student Expert via Semi-Supervised Foundation Model Distillation

    Apr 4, 2026Pardis Taghavi, Tian Liu, Renjie Li +2Knowledge DistillationInstance Segmentation

    Texas A&M University

  9. XSeg: A Large-scale X-ray Contraband Segmentation Benchmark For Real-World Security Screening

    Apr 4, 2026Hongxia Gao, Litao Li, Yixin Chen +3Image SegmentationInstance Segmentation

    Xi’an Jiaotong University · Shenzhen Loop Area Institute · Pazhou Laboratory +1

  10. IndoorCrowd: A Multi-Scene Dataset for Human Detection, Segmentation, and Tracking with an Automated Annotation Pipeline

    Apr 2, 2026Sebastian-Ion Nae, Radu Moldoveanu, Alexandra Stefania Ghita +1Instance SegmentationMulti-Object Tracking

    National University of Science and Technology Politehnica Bucharest, Romania · Expleo, Romania

  11. Dense Point-to-Mask Optimization with Reinforced Point Selection for Crowd Instance Segmentation

    Apr 2, 2026Hongru Chen, Jiyang Huang, Jia Wan +1Instance SegmentationCrowd Counting

    Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen · City University of Hong Kong

  12. Director: Instance-aware Gaussian Splatting for Dynamic Scene Modeling and Understanding

    Apr 2, 2026Yuheng Jiang, Yiwen Cai, Zihao Wang +5Dynamic Scene Reconstruction3D Gaussian Splatting

    ShanghaiTech University · ByteDance

  13. Video Patch Pruning: Efficient Video Instance Segmentation via Early Token Reduction

    Apr 1, 2026Patrick Glandorf, Thomas Norrenbrock, Bodo RosenhahnVideo Instance SegmentationVisual Token Pruning

    Institute for Information Processing (tnt), L3S - Leibniz University Hannover, Germany

  14. Adapting SAM to Nuclei Instance Segmentation and Classification via Cooperative Fine-Grained Refinement

    Mar 30, 2026Jingze Su, Tianle Zhu, Jiaxin Cai +6Instance SegmentationHistopathology Image Segmentation

    College of Computer and Data Science, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, China · College of Physics and Information Engineering, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, China · School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, China

  15. Evaluating Large and Lightweight Vision Models for Irregular Component Segmentation in E-Waste Disassembly

    Mar 28, 2026Xinyao Zhang, Chang Liu, Xiao Liang +2Instance Segmentation

    Florida State University, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Tallahassee, FL, USA · Texas A&M University, Mechanical Engineering, College Station, TX, USA · University of Florida, Environmental Engineering Sciences, Gainesville, FL, USA

  16. Automated multi-class wound assessment using dedicated instance segmentation models for boundary detection and classification

    Mar 28, 2026Mehedi Hasan Tusar, Fateme Fayyazbakhsh, Igor Melnychuk +1Instance SegmentationMedical Image Classification

    Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, College of Engineering and Computing, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, Missouri, United States of America · Missouri Protoplex, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, Missouri, United States of America · Center for Biomedical Research, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, Missouri, United States of America +2

  17. Boundary-Aware Instance Segmentation in Microscopy Imaging

    Mar 22, 2026Thomas Mendelson, Joshua Francois, Galit Lahav +1Instance SegmentationBoundary-Aware Segmentation

    The School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev · Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School

  18. EdgeCrafter: Compact ViTs for Edge Dense Prediction via Task-Specialized Distillation

    Mar 19, 2026Longfei Liu, Yongjie Hou, Yang Li +7Dense PredictionEfficient ViTs

    Intellindust AI Lab

  19. Inst4DGS: Instance-Decomposed 4D Gaussian Splatting with Multi-Video Label Permutation Learning

    Mar 19, 2026Yonghan Lee, Dinesh Manocha3D Gaussian SplattingInstance Segmentation

    University of Maryland, College Park, USA

  20. Revisiting foundation models for cell instance segmentation

    Mar 18, 2026Anwai Archit, Constantin PapeInstance SegmentationMicroscopy Image Analysis

    Georg-August-University Göttingen, Institute of Computer Science · CAIMed - Lower Saxony Center for AI & Causal Methods in Medicine, Göttingen · Cluster of Excellence Multiscale Bioimaging (MBExC), Georg-August-University Göttingen

  21. Exclusivity-Guided Mask Learning for Semi-Supervised Crowd Instance Segmentation and Counting

    Mar 17, 2026Jiyang Huang, Hongru Chen, Wei Lin +2Crowd CountingInstance Segmentation

    Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, China · City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong

  22. In-Field 3D Wheat Head Instance Segmentation From TLS Point Clouds Using Deep Learning Without Manual Labels

    Mar 15, 2026Tomislav Medic, Liangliang NanInstance Segmentation3D Instance Segmentation

    Institute of Geodesy and Photogrammetry, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland · Urban Data Science Section, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands

  23. USIS-PGM: Photometric Gaussian Mixtures for Underwater Salient Instance Segmentation

    Mar 14, 2026Lin Hong, Xiangtong Yao, Mürüvvet Bozkurt +2Image SegmentationInstance Segmentation

    Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China · School of CIT, Chair i6, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany · School of CIT, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany +1

  24. SAP: Segment Any 4K Panorama

    Mar 13, 2026Lutao Jiang, Zidong Cao, Weikai Chen +14Instance SegmentationVision Foundation Models

    The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) · LIGHTSPEED · The University of Hong Kong +1

  25. Prompt-Driven Lightweight Foundation Model for Instance Segmentation-Based Fault Detection in Freight Trains

    Mar 13, 2026Guodong Sun, Qihang Liang, Xingyu Pan +2Fault DetectionInstance Segmentation

    the School of Mechanical Engineering, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan 430068, China · The Hubei Key Laboratory of Modern Manufacturing Quality Engineering, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan 430068, China · the School of Mechanical Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China

  26. A dataset of medication images with instance segmentation masks for preventing adverse drug events

    Mar 11, 2026W. I. Chu, S. Hirani, G. Tarroni +1Object DetectionInstance Segmentation

    City St George’s, University of London, School of Science & Technology, London, EC1V 0HB, United Kingdom · City St George’s, University of London, School of Health & Medical Sciences, London, EC1V 0HB, United Kingdom · Imperial College London, Dept of Computer Science, London, SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom

  27. Phase-Interface Instance Segmentation as a Visual Sensor for Laboratory Process Monitoring

    Mar 11, 2026Mingyue Li, Xin Yang, Shilin Yan +8Instance SegmentationBoundary-Aware Segmentation

    School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chongqing University of Technology, Chongqing 400054, China · School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China · Department of computer science, University of North Texas, Denton 76207, Texas, United States +2

  28. Efficient RGB-D Scene Understanding via Multi-task Adaptive Learning and Cross-dimensional Feature Guidance

    Mar 8, 2026Guodong Sun, Junjie Liu, Gaoyang Zhang +23D Scene UnderstandingSemantic Segmentation

    School of Mechanical Engineering, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan, 430068, China · Hubei Key Laboratory of Modern Manufacturing Quality Engineering, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan, 430068, China · Vehicle Measurement, Control and Safety Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Xihua University, Chengdu, 610039, China +2

  29. Field imaging framework for morphological characterization of aggregates with computer vision: Algorithms and applications

    Mar 4, 2026Haohang Huang3D Instance SegmentationInstance Segmentation

    Graduate College of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois

  30. LeafInst - Unified Instance Segmentation Network for Fine-Grained Forestry Leaf Phenotype Analysis: A New UAV based Benchmark

    Mar 4, 2026Taige Luo, Junru Xie, Chenyang Fan +5Instance SegmentationPlant Phenotyping

    College of Information Science and Technology & Artificial Intelligence, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, 210037, Jiangsu, China · Department of Geography, College of Natural Resources and Environment, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, 24061, USA · School of Software, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, 230601, Anhui, China +2