mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Domain Adaptation for Semantic Segmentation via Patch-Wise Contrastive Learning

arXiv 2104.11056 ↗First posted 22 Apr 2021cs.CVcited by 30

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Abstract (arXiv)

We introduce a novel approach to unsupervised and semi-supervised domain adaptation for semantic segmentation. Unlike many earlier methods that rely on adversarial learning for feature alignment, we leverage contrastive learning to bridge the domain gap by aligning the features of structurally similar label patches across domains. As a result, the networks are easier to train and deliver better performance. Our approach consistently outperforms state-of-the-art unsupervised and semi-supervised methods on two challenging domain adaptive segmentation tasks, particularly with a small number of target domain annotations. It can also be naturally extended to weakly-supervised domain adaptation, where only a minor drop in accuracy can save up to 75% of annotation cost.

Key facts. Cited by 30 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 43 of its 53 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 22 Apr 2021.

Builds on

43 of 53 references.

References · 43

  1. 2015Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognitioncited by 51,809
  2. 2015U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentationcited by 19,604
  3. 2020A Simple Framework for Contrastive Learning of Visual Representationscited by 11,979
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  5. 2016The Cityscapes Dataset for Semantic Urban Scene Understandingcited by 4,427
  6. 2016DeepLab: Semantic Image Segmentation with Deep Convolutional Nets, Atrous Convolution, and Fully Connected CRFscited by 3,239
  7. 2019Contrastive Multiview Codingcited by 1,297
  8. 2017CyCADA: Cycle-Consistent Adversarial Domain Adaptationcited by 1,079
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  10. 2019Self-Supervised Learning of Pretext-Invariant Representationscited by 806
  11. 2020Contrastive Learning for Unpaired Image-to-Image Translationcited by 637
  12. 2018ADVENT: Adversarial Entropy Minimization for Domain Adaptation in Semantic Segmentationcited by 623
31 more
  1. 2018Learning to Adapt Structured Output Space for Semantic Segmentationcited by 584
  2. 2020FDA: Fourier Domain Adaptation for Semantic Segmentationcited by 540
  3. 2018Invariant Information Clustering for Unsupervised Image Classification and Segmentationcited by 454
  4. 2019Semi-supervised Domain Adaptation via Minimax Entropycited by 333
  5. 2020Contrastive learning of global and local features for medical image segmentation with limited annotationscited by 309
  6. 2014Discriminative Unsupervised Feature Learning with Exemplar Convolutional Neural Networkscited by 299
  7. 2016FCNs in the Wild: Pixel-level Adversarial and Constraint-based Adaptationcited by 242
  8. 2019Unsupervised Embedding Learning via Invariant and Spreading Instance Featurecited by 231
  9. 2019Local Aggregation for Unsupervised Learning of Visual Embeddingscited by 204
  10. 2017Multi-task Self-Supervised Visual Learningcited by 200
  11. 2020Unsupervised Intra-domain Adaptation for Semantic Segmentation through Self-Supervisioncited by 198
  12. 2019Domain Adaptation for Semantic Segmentation with Maximum Squares Losscited by 138
  13. 2017No More Discrimination: Cross City Adaptation of Road Scene Segmenterscited by 110
  14. 2017Adversarial Dropout Regularizationcited by 106
  15. 2019Constructing Self-motivated Pyramid Curriculums for Cross-Domain Semantic Segmentation: A Non-Adversarial Approachcited by 103
  16. 2020Contrastive Learning for Weakly Supervised Phrase Groundingcited by 102
  17. 2018DCAN: Dual Channel-wise Alignment Networks for Unsupervised Scene Adaptationcited by 101
  18. 2019DADA: Depth-aware Domain Adaptation in Semantic Segmentationcited by 97
  19. 2017ROAD: Reality Oriented Adaptation for Semantic Segmentation of Urban Scenescited by 95
  20. 2016Beyond Sharing Weights for Deep Domain Adaptationcited by 80
  21. 2020Contextual-Relation Consistent Domain Adaptation for Semantic Segmentationcited by 70
  22. 2020Attract, Perturb, and Explore: Learning a Feature Alignment Network for Semi-supervised Domain Adaptationcited by 69
  23. 2020Phase Consistent Ecological Domain Adaptationcited by 62
  24. 2020Domain Adaptive Semantic Segmentation Using Weak Labelscited by 56
  25. 2018Universal Semi-Supervised Semantic Segmentationcited by 50
  26. 2020Learning from Scale-Invariant Examples for Domain Adaptation in Semantic Segmentationcited by 41
  27. 2020Alleviating Semantic-level Shift: A Semi-supervised Domain Adaptation Method for Semantic Segmentationcited by 35
  28. 2018Domain Adaptation for Semantic Segmentation via Class-Balanced Self-Trainingcited by 31
  29. 2018Penalizing Top Performers: Conservative Loss for Semantic Segmentation Adaptationcited by 29
  30. 2020Context-Aware Group Captioning via Self-Attention and Contrastive Featurescited by 17
  31. 2020Block Annotation: Better Image Annotation for Semantic Segmentation with Sub-Image Decompositioncited by 11

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2021: 9; 2022: 11; 2023: 5; 2024: 2; 2025: 2; 2026: 1.

30 papers.

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  1. 2021Semi-Supervised Semantic Segmentation with Pixel-Level Contrastive Learning from a Class-wise Memory Bankcited by 125
  2. 2021Weakly Supervised Semantic Segmentation by Pixel-to-Prototype Contrastcited by 85
  3. 2022MM-TTA: Multi-Modal Test-Time Adaptation for 3D Semantic Segmentationcited by 76
  4. 2021CLDA: Contrastive Learning for Semi-Supervised Domain Adaptationcited by 52
  5. 2021Contrast and Mix: Temporal Contrastive Video Domain Adaptation with Background Mixingcited by 49
  6. 2022PiPa: Pixel- and Patch-wise Self-supervised Learning for Domain Adaptative Semantic Segmentationcited by 41
  7. 2022Prototypical Contrast Adaptation for Domain Adaptive Semantic Segmentationcited by 40
  8. 2023Survey on Unsupervised Domain Adaptation for Semantic Segmentation for Visual Perception in Automated Drivingcited by 29
  9. 2022DecoupleNet: Decoupled Network for Domain Adaptive Semantic Segmentationcited by 22
  10. 2022Learning from Future: A Novel Self-Training Framework for Semantic Segmentationcited by 21
  11. 2021Learning to Align Sequential Actions in the Wildcited by 19
  12. 2021Domain Adaptive Semantic Segmentation via Regional Contrastive Consistency Regularizationcited by 16
18 more
  1. 2022CLUDA : Contrastive Learning in Unsupervised Domain Adaptation for Semantic Segmentationcited by 13
  2. 2021REGRAD: A Large-Scale Relational Grasp Dataset for Safe and Object-Specific Robotic Grasping in Cluttercited by 11
  3. 2022CellTranspose: Few-shot Domain Adaptation for Cellular Instance Segmentationcited by 11
  4. 2021Self-Supervised Learning of Domain Invariant Features for Depth Estimationcited by 9
  5. 2022Unsupervised Contrastive Domain Adaptation for Semantic Segmentationcited by 6
  6. 2022Jitter Does Matter: Adapting Gaze Estimation to New Domainscited by 6
  7. 2023Consistency Regularisation in Varying Contexts and Feature Perturbations for Semi-Supervised Semantic Segmentation of Histology Imagescited by 6
  8. 2025CLICv2: Image Complexity Representation via Content Invariance Contrastive Learningcited by 4
  9. 2021Semantic-Aware Contrastive Learning for Multi-object Medical Image Segmentationcited by 3
  10. 2022An Active and Contrastive Learning Framework for Fine-Grained Off-Road Semantic Segmentationcited by 2
  11. 2023Towards Dynamic and Small Objects Refinement for Unsupervised Domain Adaptative Nighttime Semantic Segmentationcited by 2
  12. 2022Active Domain Adaptation with Multi-level Contrastive Units for Semantic Segmentationcited by 1
  13. 2023Dual-level Interaction for Domain Adaptive Semantic Segmentationcited by 1
  14. 2024PiPa++: Towards Unification of Domain Adaptive Semantic Segmentation via Self-supervised Learningcited by 1
  15. 2023Adversarial Semi-Supervised Domain Adaptation for Semantic Segmentation: A New Role for Labeled Target Samplescited by 0
  16. 2024A Study on Unsupervised Domain Adaptation for Semantic Segmentation in the Era of Vision-Language Modelscited by 0
  17. 2025OMUDA: Omni-level Masking for Unsupervised Domain Adaptation in Semantic Segmentationcited by 0
  18. 2026Contrastive Order Learning: A General Framework for Ordinal Regressioncited by 0