mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Visual Place Recognition: A Tutorial

arXiv 2303.03281 ↗First posted 6 Mar 2023cs.CVcited by 31

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Abstract (arXiv)

Localization is an essential capability for mobile robots. A rapidly growing field of research in this area is Visual Place Recognition (VPR), which is the ability to recognize previously seen places in the world based solely on images. This present work is the first tutorial paper on visual place recognition. It unifies the terminology of VPR and complements prior research in two important directions: 1) It provides a systematic introduction for newcomers to the field, covering topics such as the formulation of the VPR problem, a general-purpose algorithmic pipeline, an evaluation methodology for VPR approaches, and the major challenges for VPR and how they may be addressed. 2) As a contribution for researchers acquainted with the VPR problem, it examines the intricacies of different VPR problem types regarding input, data processing, and output. The tutorial also discusses the subtleties behind the evaluation of VPR algorithms, e.g., the evaluation of a VPR system that has to find all matching database images per query, as opposed to just a single match. Practical code examples in Python illustrate to prospective practitioners and researchers how VPR is implemented and evaluated.

Key facts. Cited by 31 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 36 of its 109 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 6 Mar 2023.

Builds on

36 of 109 references.

References · 36

  1. 2014ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challengecited by 8,441
  2. 2019SuperGlue: Learning Feature Matching with Graph Neural Networkscited by 1,437
  3. 2015ORB-SLAM: a Versatile and Accurate Monocular SLAM Systemcited by 983
  4. 2015NetVLAD: CNN architecture for weakly supervised place recognitioncited by 935
  5. 2019D2-Net: A Trainable CNN for Joint Detection and Description of Local Featurescited by 324
  6. 2016Large-Scale Image Retrieval with Attentive Deep Local Featurescited by 238
  7. 2021Patch-NetVLAD: Multi-Scale Fusion of Locally-Global Descriptors for Place Recognitioncited by 236
  8. 2022Rethinking Visual Geo-localization for Large-Scale Applicationscited by 160
  9. 2016PlaNet - Photo Geolocation with Convolutional Neural Networkscited by 114
  10. 2020VPR-Bench: An Open-Source Visual Place Recognition Evaluation Framework with Quantifiable Viewpoint and Appearance Changecited by 101
  11. 2017Deep Learning Features at Scale for Visual Place Recognitioncited by 96
  12. 2021Where is your place, Visual Place Recognition?cited by 82
24 more
  1. 2015On the Performance of ConvNet Features for Place Recognitioncited by 72
  2. 2018Night-to-Day Image Translation for Retrieval-based Localizationcited by 57
  3. 2021SeqNet: Learning Descriptors for Sequence-based Hierarchical Place Recognitioncited by 56
  4. 2016Approximate Nearest Neighbor Search on High Dimensional Data --- Experiments, Analyses, and Improvement (v1.0)cited by 44
  5. 2014Convolutional Neural Network-based Place Recognitioncited by 32
  6. 2021Hyperdimensional computing as a framework for systematic aggregation of image descriptorscited by 32
  7. 2022AmsterTime: A Visual Place Recognition Benchmark Dataset for Severe Domain Shiftcited by 32
  8. 2022The Revisiting Problem in Simultaneous Localization and Mapping: A Survey on Visual Loop Closure Detectioncited by 29
  9. 2013Experiments with Random Projectioncited by 27
  10. 2018Adversarial Training for Adverse Conditions: Robust Metric Localisation using Appearance Transfercited by 25
  11. 2022Learning Sequential Descriptors for Sequence-based Visual Place Recognitioncited by 25
  12. 2017Data-Efficient Decentralized Visual SLAMcited by 23
  13. 2020Delta Descriptors: Change-Based Place Representation for Robust Visual Localizationcited by 21
  14. 2018iBoW-LCD: An Appearance-based Loop Closure Detection Approach using Incremental Bags of Binary Wordscited by 20
  15. 2019Condition-Invariant Multi-View Place Recognitioncited by 18
  16. 2020Intelligent Reference Curation for Visual Place Recognition via Bayesian Selective Fusioncited by 17
  17. 2021A Hierarchical Dual Model of Environment- and Place-Specific Utility for Visual Place Recognitioncited by 15
  18. 2020Unsupervised Learning Methods for Visual Place Recognition in Discretely and Continuously Changing Environmentscited by 14
  19. 2021What makes visual place recognition easy or hard?cited by 14
  20. 2021Spiking Neural Networks for Visual Place Recognition via Weighted Neuronal Assignmentscited by 14
  21. 2021Inside Out Visual Place Recognitioncited by 12
  22. 2022Danish Airs and Grounds: A Dataset for Aerial-to-Street-Level Place Recognition and Localizationcited by 12
  23. 2022General Place Recognition Survey: Towards the Real-world Autonomy Agecited by 11
  24. 2021Beyond ANN: Exploiting Structural Knowledge for Efficient Place Recognitioncited by 6

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2023: 4; 2024: 11; 2025: 6; 2026: 10.

31 papers.

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  1. 2023AnyLoc: Towards Universal Visual Place Recognitioncited by 159
  2. 2023Optimal Transport Aggregation for Visual Place Recognitioncited by 151
  3. 2024Close, But Not There: Boosting Geographic Distance Sensitivity in Visual Place Recognitioncited by 27
  4. 2023Language-EXtended Indoor SLAM (LEXIS): A Versatile System for Real-time Visual Scene Understandingcited by 15
  5. 2024EDTformer: An Efficient Decoder Transformer for Visual Place Recognitioncited by 10
  6. 2024MeshVPR: Citywide Visual Place Recognition Using 3D Meshescited by 8
  7. 2024Unifying Local and Global Multimodal Features for Place Recognition in Aliased and Low-Texture Environmentscited by 7
  8. 2025Ensemble-Based Event Camera Place Recognition Under Varying Illuminationcited by 4
  9. 2025To Match or Not to Match: Revisiting Image Matching for Reliable Visual Place Recognitioncited by 3
  10. 2024Spike-EVPR: Deep Spiking Residual Networks with SNN-Tailored Representations for Event-Based Visual Place Recognitioncited by 2
  11. 2025TextInPlace: Indoor Visual Place Recognition in Repetitive Structures with Scene Text Spotting and Verificationcited by 2
  12. 2025Through the Lens of Doubt: Robust and Efficient Uncertainty Estimation for Visual Place Recognitioncited by 2
19 more
  1. 2026Event-Driven Neuromorphic Vision Enables Energy-Efficient Visual Place Recognitioncited by 2
  2. 2024Hierarchical place recognition with omnidirectional images and curriculum learning-based loss functionscited by 1
  3. 2025Query-Based Adaptive Aggregation for Multi-Dataset Joint Training Toward Universal Visual Place Recognitioncited by 1
  4. 2026Advanced techniques and applications of LiDAR Place Recognition in Agricultural Environments: A Comprehensive Surveycited by 1
  5. 2023Aggregating Multiple Bio-Inspired Image Region Classifiers For Effective And Lightweight Visual Place Recognitioncited by 0
  6. 2024Multi-Technique Sequential Information Consistency For Dynamic Visual Place Recognition In Changing Environmentscited by 0
  7. 2024NocPlace: Nocturnal Visual Place Recognition via Generative and Inherited Knowledge Transfercited by 0
  8. 2024Local positional graphs and attentive local features for a data and runtime-efficient hierarchical place recognition pipelinecited by 0
  9. 2024Towards Revisiting Visual Place Recognition for Joining Submaps in Multimap SLAMcited by 0
  10. 2024Why Sample Space Matters: Keyframe Sampling Optimization for LiDAR-based Place Recognitioncited by 0
  11. 2025Adaptive Thresholding for Visual Place Recognition using Negative Gaussian Mixture Statisticscited by 0
  12. 2026Hybrid guided variational autoencoder for visual place recognitioncited by 0
  13. 2026A neuromorphic model of the insect visual system for natural image processingcited by 0
  14. 2026Systematic Evaluation of Novel View Synthesis for Video Place Recognitioncited by 0
  15. 2026MAG-VLAQ: Multi-modal Aerial-Ground Query Aggregation for Cross-View Place Recognitioncited by 0
  16. 2026FRED: A Multi-Modal Autonomous Driving Dataset for Flooded Road Environmentscited by 0
  17. 2026DisPlace: Discriminative Place Projections for Multi-Reference Visual Place Recognitioncited by 0
  18. 2026Visual Relocalization from Sparse Views in Aliased and Low-Texture Environments via Novel View Synthesiscited by 0
  19. 2026A Framework for Egocentric and Exocentric Procedural Understanding via Temporal Segmentation and Semantic Abstractioncited by 0