mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

clDice -- A Novel Topology-Preserving Loss Function for Tubular Structure Segmentation

arXiv 2003.07311 ↗First posted 16 Mar 2020cs.CV cs.LG eess.IVcited by 286

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Abstract (arXiv)

Accurate segmentation of tubular, network-like structures, such as vessels, neurons, or roads, is relevant to many fields of research. For such structures, the topology is their most important characteristic; particularly preserving connectedness: in the case of vascular networks, missing a connected vessel entirely alters the blood-flow dynamics. We introduce a novel similarity measure termed centerlineDice (short clDice), which is calculated on the intersection of the segmentation masks and their (morphological) skeleta. We theoretically prove that clDice guarantees topology preservation up to homotopy equivalence for binary 2D and 3D segmentation. Extending this, we propose a computationally efficient, differentiable loss function (soft-clDice) for training arbitrary neural segmentation networks. We benchmark the soft-clDice loss on five public datasets, including vessels, roads and neurons (2D and 3D). Training on soft-clDice leads to segmentation with more accurate connectivity information, higher graph similarity, and better volumetric scores.

Key facts. Cited by 286 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). First posted on arXiv 16 Mar 2020.

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Citing papers per year: 2021: 8; 2022: 30; 2023: 33; 2024: 65; 2025: 63; 2026: 87.

286 papers.

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  1. 2022Metrics reloaded: Recommendations for image analysis validationcited by 190
  2. 2023Dynamic Snake Convolution based on Topological Geometric Constraints for Tubular Structure Segmentationcited by 83
  3. 2022Relationformer: A Unified Framework for Image-to-Graph Generationcited by 67
  4. 2021Common Limitations of Image Processing Metrics: A Picture Storycited by 58
  5. 2023Understanding metric-related pitfalls in image analysis validationcited by 57
  6. 2022ImageCAS: A Large-Scale Dataset and Benchmark for Coronary Artery Segmentation based on Computed Tomography Angiography Imagescited by 54
  7. 2022Topologically faithful image segmentation via induced matching of persistence barcodescited by 48
  8. 2023The TopCoW Challenge -- Topology-Aware Circle of Willis Segmentation for CT and MR Angiographycited by 48
  9. 2024Skeleton Recall Loss for Connectivity Conserving and Resource Efficient Segmentation of Thin Tubular Structurescited by 43
  10. 2023Topology-Aware Uncertainty for Image Segmentationcited by 32
  11. 2023Directional Connectivity-based Segmentation of Medical Imagescited by 30
  12. 2022Learning Topological Interactions for Multi-Class Medical Image Segmentationcited by 28
38 more
  1. 2024Centerline Boundary Dice Loss for Vascular Segmentationcited by 27
  2. 2023Efficient automatic segmentation for multi-level pulmonary arteries: The PARSE challengecited by 26
  3. 2021Structure-Aware Image Segmentation with Homotopy Warpingcited by 24
  4. 2022Learning Probabilistic Topological Representations Using Discrete Morse Theorycited by 20
  5. 2022blob loss: instance imbalance aware loss functions for semantic segmentationcited by 18
  6. 2024vesselFM: A Foundation Model for Universal 3D Blood Vessel Segmentationcited by 18
  7. 2021TA-Net: Topology-Aware Network for Gland Segmentationcited by 17
  8. 2023A skeletonization algorithm for gradient-based optimizationcited by 17
  9. 2024Topograph: An efficient Graph-Based Framework for Strictly Topology Preserving Image Segmentationcited by 17
  10. 2023Synthetic optical coherence tomography angiographs for detailed retinal vessel segmentation without human annotationscited by 16
  11. 2024TopoCellGen: Generating Histopathology Cell Topology with a Diffusion Modelcited by 16
  12. 2022RTNet: Relation Transformer Network for Diabetic Retinopathy Multi-lesion Segmentationcited by 14
  13. 2022Capturing Shape Information with Multi-Scale Topological Loss Terms for 3D Reconstructioncited by 14
  14. 2022Human Treelike Tubular Structure Segmentation: A Comprehensive Review and Future Perspectivescited by 14
  15. 2023SAM-OCTA: A Fine-Tuning Strategy for Applying Foundation Model to OCTA Image Segmentation Taskscited by 14
  16. 2024DeNVeR: Deformable Neural Vessel Representations for Unsupervised Video Vessel Segmentationcited by 13
  17. 2024Representing Topological Self-Similarity Using Fractal Feature Maps for Accurate Segmentation of Tubular Structurescited by 13
  18. 2021Do We Really Need Dice? The Hidden Region-Size Biases of Segmentation Lossescited by 12
  19. 2022Local Intensity Order Transformation for Robust Curvilinear Object Segmentationcited by 12
  20. 2022DTU-Net: Learning Topological Similarity for Curvilinear Structure Segmentationcited by 12
  21. 2022Physiology-based simulation of the retinal vasculature enables annotation-free segmentation of OCT angiographscited by 12
  22. 2024Topologically Faithful Multi-class Segmentation in Medical Imagescited by 12
  23. 2023Semi-supervised Segmentation of Histopathology Images with Noise-Aware Topological Consistencycited by 11
  24. 2024S-SAM: SVD-based Fine-Tuning of Segment Anything Model for Medical Image Segmentationcited by 11
  25. 2022A Learning-based Framework for Topology-Preserving Segmentation using Quasiconformal Mappingscited by 10
  26. 2022RibSeg v2: A Large-scale Benchmark for Rib Labeling and Anatomical Centerline Extractioncited by 10
  27. 2023DIAS: A Dataset and Benchmark for Intracranial Artery Segmentation in DSA sequencescited by 10
  28. 2023Designing a Hybrid Neural System to Learn Real-world Crack Segmentation from Fractal-based Simulationcited by 10
  29. 2024TopoDiffusionNet: A Topology-aware Diffusion Modelcited by 10
  30. 2021METGAN: Generative Tumour Inpainting and Modality Synthesis in Light Sheet Microscopycited by 9
  31. 2023Multi-site, Multi-domain Airway Tree Modeling (ATM'22): A Public Benchmark for Pulmonary Airway Segmentationcited by 9
  32. 2025GLCP: Global-to-Local Connectivity Preservation for Tubular Structure Segmentationcited by 9
  33. 2022PointScatter: Point Set Representation for Tubular Structure Extractioncited by 8
  34. 2023VSR-Net: Vessel-like Structure Rehabilitation Network with Graph Clusteringcited by 8
  35. 2024Enhancing Boundary Segmentation for Topological Accuracy with Skeleton-based Methodscited by 8
  36. 2024DSCA: A Digital Subtraction Angiography Sequence Dataset and Spatio-Temporal Model for Cerebral Artery Segmentationcited by 8
  37. 2024Topology-Preserving Image Segmentation with Spatial-Aware Persistent Feature Matchingcited by 8
  38. 2023Accurate Airway Tree Segmentation in CT Scans via Anatomy-aware Multi-class Segmentation and Topology-guided Iterative Learningcited by 7

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