Distance Field-Based Convolutional Neural Network for Edge Detection

In this paper, we first propose an accurate edge detector using a distance field-based convolutional neural network (DF-CNN). In recent years, CNNs have been proved to be effective in image processing and computer vision. As edge detection is a fundamental problem among them, we try to improve the accuracy of edge detection based on the deep learning framework. The proposed network combines a feature extraction backbone that can fully exploit the multiscale and multilevel information of the edge with the supervised training of the distance field branch to realize the accurate end-to-end object edge detection. The distance field branch is applied to predict the Euclidean distance from nonedge points to the nearest edge point in the feature maps. And the distance information embedded in the predicted distance field map can effectively improve the accuracy of edge detection. The network is trained to minimize the weighted sum of the distance field branch loss and the cross-entropy loss. Our experimental results show that the proposed edge detector achieves better performance than previous approaches and the effectiveness of the proposed distance field branch.