# Cross-view geo-localization: a survey

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.09722 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09722/

## Key facts

- Cited by 15 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 54 of its 139 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 14 Jun 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 54)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [BEiT: BERT Pre-Training of Image Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.08254/) (2021)
- [Deformable Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.06211/) (2017)
- [Dynamic Routing Between Capsules](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.09829/) (2017)
- [VIGOR: Cross-View Image Geo-localization beyond One-to-one Retrieval](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.12172/) (2020)
- [Wide-Area Image Geolocalization with Aerial Reference Imagery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1510.03743/) (2015)
- [Lending Orientation to Neural Networks for Cross-view Geo-localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.12351/) (2019)
- [TransGeo: Transformer Is All You Need for Cross-view Image Geo-localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.00097/) (2022)
- [University-1652: A Multi-view Multi-source Benchmark for Drone-based Geo-localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.12186/) (2020)
- [Where am I looking at? Joint Location and Orientation Estimation by Cross-View Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.03860/) (2020)
- [Coming Down to Earth: Satellite-to-Street View Synthesis for Geo-Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.06818/) (2021)
- [Sample4Geo: Hard Negative Sampling For Cross-View Geo-Localisation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11851/) (2023)
- [Multi-Channel Attention Selection GAN with Cascaded Semantic Guidance for Cross-View Image Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.06807/) (2019)
- [Each Part Matters: Local Patterns Facilitate Cross-view Geo-localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.11646/) (2020)
- [Bridging the Domain Gap for Ground-to-Aerial Image Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.11045/) (2019)
- [Localizing and Orienting Street Views Using Overhead Imagery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.00161/) (2016)
- [Deep Learning vs. Traditional Computer Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.13796/) (2019)
- [Optimal Feature Transport for Cross-View Image Geo-Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.05021/) (2019)
- [Predicting Ground-Level Scene Layout from Aerial Imagery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.02709/) (2016)
- [Beyond Cross-view Image Retrieval: Highly Accurate Vehicle Localization Using Satellite Image](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.04752/) (2022)
- [Cross-view Geo-localization via Learning Disentangled Geometric Layout Correspondence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.04074/) (2022)
- [Cross-View Image Matching for Geo-localization in Urban Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.07815/) (2017)
- [Cross-View Image Synthesis using Conditional GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.03396/) (2018)
- [Fine-Grained Cross-View Geo-Localization Using a Correlation-Aware Homography Estimator](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.16906/) (2023)
- [Uncertainty-aware Vision-based Metric Cross-view Geolocalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.12145/) (2022)
- [Visual Cross-View Metric Localization with Dense Uncertainty Estimates](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.08519/) (2022)
- [SliceMatch: Geometry-guided Aggregation for Cross-View Pose Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.14651/) (2022)
- [Boosting 3-DoF Ground-to-Satellite Camera Localization Accuracy via Geometry-Guided Cross-View Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.08015/) (2023)
- [DeepCaps: Going Deeper with Capsule Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.09546/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 15 of 15)

- [AddressVLM: Cross-view Alignment Tuning for Image Address Localization using Large Vision-Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.10667/) (2025)
- [RaSCL: Radar to Satellite Crossview Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.15899/) (2025)
- [Interpretable Perception and Reasoning for Audiovisual Geolocation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.05708/) (2026)
- [Beyond Matching to Tiles: Bridging Unaligned Aerial and Satellite Views for Vision-Only UAV Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.22153/) (2026)
- [Personalized Federated Learning for Cross-view Geo-localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.04692/) (2024)
- [Cross-view Localization and Synthesis -- Datasets, Challenges and Opportunities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.22736/) (2025)
- [Beyond Paired Data: Self-Supervised UAV Geo-Localization from Reference Imagery Alone](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.02737/) (2025)
- [(MGS)2-Net: Unifying Micro-Geometric Scale and Macro-Geometric Structure for Cross-View Geo-Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.10704/) (2026)
- [VFM-Loc: Training-Free Cross-View Geo-Localization via Aligning Discriminative Visual Hierarchies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.13855/) (2026)
- [Road Maps as Free Geometric Priors: Weather-Invariant Drone Geo-Localization with GeoFuse](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.14925/) (2026)
- [Learning Cross-view Correspondences for Geo-localization on Planetary Surfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.29821/) (2026)
- [STEAM: Stable Self-Training with Elastic Matching and Adaptive Purification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.09057/) (2026)
- [Leveraging Semantic Maps for City-Scale Cross-View Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.25215/) (2026)
- [Cross-View Sequential Visual Localization with Spatio-Temporal Context Modeling for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.10660/) (2026)
- [The Coastline as a Structural Constraint: Harnessing Scene Geometry for Autonomous Surface Vessel Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.21276/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Cross-view geo-localization has garnered notable attention in the realm of computer vision, spurred by the widespread availability of copious geotagged datasets and the advancements in machine learning techniques. This paper provides a thorough survey of cutting-edge methodologies, techniques, and associated challenges that are integral to this domain, with a focus on feature-based and deep learning strategies. Feature-based methods capitalize on unique features to establish correspondences across disparate viewpoints, whereas deep learning-based methodologies deploy convolutional neural networks to embed view-invariant attributes. This work also delineates the multifaceted challenges encountered in cross-view geo-localization, such as variations in viewpoints and illumination, the occurrence of occlusions, and it elucidates innovative solutions that have been formulated to tackle these issues. Furthermore, we delineate benchmark datasets and relevant evaluation metrics, and also perform a comparative analysis of state-of-the-art techniques. Finally, we conclude the paper with a discussion on prospective avenues for future research and the burgeoning applications of cross-view geo-localization in an intricately interconnected global landscape.