# Conditional Generative Adversarial Networks for Data Augmentation and Adaptation in Remotely Sensed Imagery

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.03809 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.03809/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 10 Aug 2019.

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Semantic Palette: Guiding Scene Generation with Class Proportions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.01629/) (2021)
- [Learning to Generate Training Datasets for Robust Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.02535/) (2023)
- [Synthetic Data and Hierarchical Object Detection in Overhead Imagery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.00103/) (2021)
- [Image augmentation with invertible networks in interactive satellite image change detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.18660/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The difficulty in obtaining labeled data relevant to a given task is among the most common and well-known practical obstacles to applying deep learning techniques to new or even slightly modified domains. The data volumes required by the current generation of supervised learning algorithms typically far exceed what a human needs to learn and complete a given task. We investigate ways to expand a given labeled corpus of remote sensed imagery into a larger corpus using Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). We then measure how these additional synthetic data affect supervised machine learning performance on an object detection task. Our data driven strategy is to train GANs to (1) generate synthetic segmentation masks and (2) generate plausible synthetic remote sensing imagery corresponding to these segmentation masks. Run sequentially, these GANs allow the generation of synthetic remote sensing imagery complete with segmentation labels. We apply this strategy to the data set from ISPRS' 2D Semantic Labeling Contest - Potsdam, with a follow on vehicle detection task. We find that in scenarios with limited training data, augmenting the available data with such synthetically generated data can improve detector performance.