# SurgiTrack: Fine-Grained Multi-Class Multi-Tool Tracking in Surgical Videos

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.20333 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.20333/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 40 of its 75 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 30 May 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 40)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [Swin Transformer: Hierarchical Vision Transformer using Shifted Windows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14030/) (2021)
- [Faster R-CNN: Towards Real-Time Object Detection with Region Proposal Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.01497/) (2015)
- [EfficientNet: Rethinking Model Scaling for Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.11946/) (2019)
- [Deformable DETR: Deformable Transformers for End-to-End Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.04159/) (2020)
- [SSD: Single Shot MultiBox Detector](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.02325/) (2015)
- [FCOS: Fully Convolutional One-Stage Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.01355/) (2019)
- [YOLOX: Exceeding YOLO Series in 2021](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.08430/) (2021)
- [YOLOv7: Trainable bag-of-freebies sets new state-of-the-art for real-time object detectors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.02696/) (2022)
- [Simple Online and Realtime Tracking with a Deep Association Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.07402/) (2017)
- [Simple Online and Realtime Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.00763/) (2016)
- [ByteTrack: Multi-Object Tracking by Associating Every Detection Box](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.06864/) (2021)
- [CrossViT: Cross-Attention Multi-Scale Vision Transformer for Image Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14899/) (2021)
- [Performance Measures and a Data Set for Multi-Target, Multi-Camera Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.01775/) (2016)
- [HOTA: A Higher Order Metric for Evaluating Multi-Object Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.07736/) (2020)
- [TrackFormer: Multi-Object Tracking with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.02702/) (2021)
- [FairMOT: On the Fairness of Detection and Re-Identification in Multiple Object Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.01888/) (2020)
- [Cascade R-CNN: High Quality Object Detection and Instance Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.09756/) (2019)
- [Tracking without bells and whistles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.05625/) (2019)
- [MOTR: End-to-End Multiple-Object Tracking with Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.03247/) (2021)
- [TransTrack: Multiple Object Tracking with Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.15460/) (2020)
- [MOT20: A benchmark for multi object tracking in crowded scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.09003/) (2020)
- [BoT-SORT: Robust Associations Multi-Pedestrian Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.14651/) (2022)
- [Towards Real-Time Multi-Object Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.12605/) (2019)
- [CrowdHuman: A Benchmark for Detecting Human in a Crowd](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.00123/) (2018)
- [Detection and Tracking Meet Drones Challenge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.06303/) (2020)
- [ECO: Efficient Convolution Operators for Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.09224/) (2016)
- [StrongSORT: Make DeepSORT Great Again](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.13514/) (2022)
- [Probabilistic Anchor Assignment with IoU Prediction for Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.08103/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Surgical Scene Understanding in the Era of Foundation AI Models: A Comprehensive Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.14886/) (2025)
- [Surgical Text-to-Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.09230/) (2024)
- [ProstaTD: Bridging Surgical Triplet from Classification to Fully Supervised Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.01130/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Accurate tool tracking is essential for the success of computer-assisted intervention. Previous efforts often modeled tool trajectories rigidly, overlooking the dynamic nature of surgical procedures, especially tracking scenarios like out-of-body and out-of-camera views. Addressing this limitation, the new CholecTrack20 dataset provides detailed labels that account for multiple tool trajectories in three perspectives: (1) intraoperative, (2) intracorporeal, and (3) visibility, representing the different types of temporal duration of tool tracks. These fine-grained labels enhance tracking flexibility but also increase the task complexity. Re-identifying tools after occlusion or re-insertion into the body remains challenging due to high visual similarity, especially among tools of the same category. This work recognizes the critical role of the tool operators in distinguishing tool track instances, especially those belonging to the same tool category. The operators' information are however not explicitly captured in surgical videos. We therefore propose SurgiTrack, a novel deep learning method that leverages YOLOv7 for precise tool detection and employs an attention mechanism to model the originating direction of the tools, as a proxy to their operators, for tool re-identification. To handle diverse tool trajectory perspectives, SurgiTrack employs a harmonizing bipartite matching graph, minimizing conflicts and ensuring accurate tool identity association. Experimental results on CholecTrack20 demonstrate SurgiTrack's effectiveness, outperforming baselines and state-of-the-art methods with real-time inference capability. This work sets a new standard in surgical tool tracking, providing dynamic trajectories for more adaptable and precise assistance in minimally invasive surgeries.