# Synthetic imagery for fuzzy object detection: A comparative study

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.01124 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.01124/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 20 of its 39 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 1 Oct 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 20 of 20)

- [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)
- [Very Deep Convolutional Networks for Large-Scale Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.1556/) (2014)
- [Faster R-CNN: Towards Real-Time Object Detection with Region Proposal Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.01497/) (2015)
- [Mask R-CNN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.06870/) (2017)
- [Fully Convolutional Networks for Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1411.4038/) (2014)
- [You Only Look Once: Unified, Real-Time Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.02640/) (2015)
- [Quo Vadis, Action Recognition? A New Model and the Kinetics Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.07750/) (2017)
- [YOLOv4: Optimal Speed and Accuracy of Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.10934/) (2020)
- [Is Space-Time Attention All You Need for Video Understanding?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.05095/) (2021)
- [Domain Randomization for Transferring Deep Neural Networks from Simulation to the Real World](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.06907/) (2017)
- [YOLOv7: Trainable bag-of-freebies sets new state-of-the-art for real-time object detectors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.02696/) (2022)
- [A Short Note about Kinetics-600](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.01340/) (2018)
- [Learning from Simulated and Unsupervised Images through Adversarial Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.07828/) (2016)
- [Render for CNN: Viewpoint Estimation in Images Using CNNs Trained with Rendered 3D Model Views](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.05641/) (2015)
- [Synthesizing Training Data for Object Detection in Indoor Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.07836/) (2017)
- [Unity Perception: Generate Synthetic Data for Computer Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.04259/) (2021)
- [NViSII: A Scriptable Tool for Photorealistic Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.13962/) (2021)
- [An Annotation Saved is an Annotation Earned: Using Fully Synthetic Training for Object Instance Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.09967/) (2019)
- [Transfer Learning From Synthetic To Real Images Using Variational Autoencoders For Precise Position Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.01990/) (2018)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [DetectiumFire: A Comprehensive Multi-modal Dataset Bridging Vision and Language for Fire Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.02495/) (2025)
- [Digital Twin and Agentic AI for Wild Fire Disaster Management: Intelligent Virtual Situation Room](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.08949/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The fuzzy object detection is a challenging field of research in computer vision (CV). Distinguishing between fuzzy and non-fuzzy object detection in CV is important. Fuzzy objects such as fire, smoke, mist, and steam present significantly greater complexities in terms of visual features, blurred edges, varying shapes, opacity, and volume compared to non-fuzzy objects such as trees and cars. Collection of a balanced and diverse dataset and accurate annotation is crucial to achieve better ML models for fuzzy objects, however, the task of collection and annotation is still highly manual. In this research, we propose and leverage an alternative method of generating and automatically annotating fully synthetic fire images based on 3D models for training an object detection model. Moreover, the performance, and efficiency of the trained ML models on synthetic images is compared with ML models trained on real imagery and mixed imagery. Findings proved the effectiveness of the synthetic data for fire detection, while the performance improves as the test dataset covers a broader spectrum of real fires. Our findings illustrates that when synthetic imagery and real imagery is utilized in a mixed training set the resulting ML model outperforms models trained on real imagery as well as models trained on synthetic imagery for detection of a broad spectrum of fires. The proposed method for automating the annotation of synthetic fuzzy objects imagery carries substantial implications for reducing both time and cost in creating computer vision models specifically tailored for detecting fuzzy objects.