# RECALL: Replay-based Continual Learning in Semantic Segmentation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.03673 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.03673/

## Key facts

- Cited by 83 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 33 of its 48 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 8 Aug 2021.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 33)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1405.0312/) (2014)
- [EfficientNet: Rethinking Model Scaling for Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.11946/) (2019)
- [Fully Convolutional Networks for Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1411.4038/) (2014)
- [Overcoming catastrophic forgetting in neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.00796/) (2016)
- [DeepLab: Semantic Image Segmentation with Deep Convolutional Nets, Atrous Convolution, and Fully Connected CRFs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.00915/) (2016)
- [Large Scale GAN Training for High Fidelity Natural Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.11096/) (2018)
- [Learning without Forgetting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.09282/) (2016)
- [Pyramid Scene Parsing Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.01105/) (2016)
- [iCaRL: Incremental Classifier and Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.07725/) (2016)
- [Rethinking Atrous Convolution for Semantic Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.05587/) (2017)
- [Gradient Episodic Memory for Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.08840/) (2017)
- [Continual Lifelong Learning with Neural Networks: A Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.07569/) (2018)
- [Continual Learning with Deep Generative Replay](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.08690/) (2017)
- [Multi-Scale Context Aggregation by Dilated Convolutions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.07122/) (2015)
- [An Empirical Investigation of Catastrophic Forgetting in Gradient-Based Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1312.6211/) (2013)
- [Overcoming catastrophic forgetting with hard attention to the task](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.01423/) (2018)
- [PathNet: Evolution Channels Gradient Descent in Super Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1701.08734/) (2017)
- [Incremental Learning of Object Detectors without Catastrophic Forgetting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.06977/) (2017)
- [Modeling the Background for Incremental Learning in Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.00718/) (2020)
- [Learning to Remember: A Synaptic Plasticity Driven Framework for Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.03137/) (2019)
- [PLOP: Learning without Forgetting for Continual Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.11390/) (2020)
- [Incremental Learning Techniques for Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.13372/) (2019)
- [Continual Semantic Segmentation via Repulsion-Attraction of Sparse and Disentangled Latent Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.06342/) (2021)
- [Webly Supervised Learning of Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.01554/) (2015)
- [Continual Learning for Robotics: Definition, Framework, Learning Strategies, Opportunities and Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.00182/) (2019)
- [Deep Generative Dual Memory Network for Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.10368/) (2017)
- [Growing a Brain: Fine-Tuning by Increasing Model Capacity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.07844/) (2019)
- [Knowledge Distillation for Incremental Learning in Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.03462/) (2019)
- [Weakly Supervised Semantic Segmentation using Web-Crawled Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1701.00352/) (2017)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 83)

- [A Comprehensive Survey of Continual Learning: Theory, Method and Application](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.00487/) (2023)
- [Class-Incremental Learning: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.03648/) (2023)
- [Representation Compensation Networks for Continual Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.05402/) (2022)
- [Real-Time Evaluation in Online Continual Learning: A New Hope](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.01047/) (2023)
- [Incremental Learning in Semantic Segmentation from Image Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.01882/) (2021)
- [Uncertainty-aware Contrastive Distillation for Incremental Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.14098/) (2022)
- [Audio-Visual Class-Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.11073/) (2023)
- [Asynchronous Federated Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.03626/) (2023)
- [Decomposed Knowledge Distillation for Class-Incremental Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.05941/) (2022)
- [RBC: Rectifying the Biased Context in Continual Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.08404/) (2022)
- [Semantic Image Segmentation: Two Decades of Research](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.06378/) (2023)
- [SATS: Self-Attention Transfer for Continual Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.07667/) (2022)
- [ALIFE: Adaptive Logit Regularizer and Feature Replay for Incremental Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.06816/) (2022)
- [CoMFormer: Continual Learning in Semantic and Panoptic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.13999/) (2022)
- [SegViTv2: Exploring Efficient and Continual Semantic Segmentation with Plain Vision Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.06289/) (2023)
- [InCloud: Incremental Learning for Point Cloud Place Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.00807/) (2022)
- [Unsupervised Continual Semantic Adaptation through Neural Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.13969/) (2022)
- [Attribution-aware Weight Transfer: A Warm-Start Initialization for Class-Incremental Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.07207/) (2022)
- [A Survey on Continual Semantic Segmentation: Theory, Challenge, Method and Application](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.14277/) (2023)
- [Rethinking Exemplars for Continual Semantic Segmentation in Endoscopy Scenes: Entropy-based Mini-Batch Pseudo-Replay](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.14100/) (2023)
- [ECLIPSE: Efficient Continual Learning in Panoptic Segmentation with Visual Prompt Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.20126/) (2024)
- [Lifelong Unsupervised Domain Adaptive Person Re-identification with Coordinated Anti-forgetting and Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.06632/) (2021)
- [CoinSeg: Contrast Inter- and Intra- Class Representations for Incremental Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.06368/) (2023)
- [Continual Learning for VLMs: A Survey and Taxonomy Beyond Forgetting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.04227/) (2025)
- [New Insights for the Stability-Plasticity Dilemma in Online Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.08741/) (2023)
- [Relational Experience Replay: Continual Learning by Adaptively Tuning Task-wise Relationship](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.15402/) (2021)
- [Foundation Model Drives Weakly Incremental Learning for Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.14250/) (2023)
- [Subspace Distillation for Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.16419/) (2023)
- [Inherit with Distillation and Evolve with Contrast: Exploring Class Incremental Semantic Segmentation Without Exemplar Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.15413/) (2023)
- [Strike a Balance in Continual Panoptic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.16354/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Deep networks allow to obtain outstanding results in semantic segmentation, however they need to be trained in a single shot with a large amount of data. Continual learning settings where new classes are learned in incremental steps and previous training data is no longer available are challenging due to the catastrophic forgetting phenomenon. Existing approaches typically fail when several incremental steps are performed or in presence of a distribution shift of the background class. We tackle these issues by recreating no longer available data for the old classes and outlining a content inpainting scheme on the background class. We propose two sources for replay data. The first resorts to a generative adversarial network to sample from the class space of past learning steps. The second relies on web-crawled data to retrieve images containing examples of old classes from online databases. In both scenarios no samples of past steps are stored, thus avoiding privacy concerns. Replay data are then blended with new samples during the incremental steps. Our approach, RECALL, outperforms state-of-the-art methods.