# Advanced computer vision for extracting georeferenced vehicle trajectories from drone imagery

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.02136 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.02136/

## Key facts

- Cited by 11 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 43 of its 133 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 4 Nov 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 43)

- [Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1405.0312/) (2014)
- [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)
- [End-to-End Object Detection with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.12872/) (2020)
- [You Only Look Once: Unified, Real-Time Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.02640/) (2015)
- [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)
- [YOLOv3: An Incremental Improvement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.02767/) (2018)
- [Rich feature hierarchies for accurate object detection and semantic segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1311.2524/) (2013)
- [YOLOv4: Optimal Speed and Accuracy of Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.10934/) (2020)
- [SuperGlue: Learning Feature Matching with Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.11763/) (2019)
- [SuperPoint: Self-Supervised Interest Point Detection and Description](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.07629/) (2017)
- [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)
- [Albumentations: fast and flexible image augmentations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.06839/) (2018)
- [DETRs Beat YOLOs on Real-time Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08069/) (2023)
- [MOT16: A Benchmark for Multi-Object Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1603.00831/) (2016)
- [YOLOv10: Real-Time End-to-End Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.14458/) (2024)
- [FairMOT: On the Fairness of Detection and Re-Identification in Multiple Object Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.01888/) (2020)
- [YOLOv9: Learning What You Want to Learn Using Programmable Gradient Information](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.13616/) (2024)
- [MOT20: A benchmark for multi object tracking in crowded scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.09003/) (2020)
- [Observation-Centric SORT: Rethinking SORT for Robust Multi-Object Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.14360/) (2022)
- [BoT-SORT: Robust Associations Multi-Pedestrian Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.14651/) (2022)
- [The highD Dataset: A Drone Dataset of Naturalistic Vehicle Trajectories on German Highways for Validation of Highly Automated Driving Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.05642/) (2018)
- [YOLOv6: A Single-Stage Object Detection Framework for Industrial Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.02976/) (2022)
- [Detection and Tracking Meet Drones Challenge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.06303/) (2020)
- [INTERACTION Dataset: An INTERnational, Adversarial and Cooperative moTION Dataset in Interactive Driving Scenarios with Semantic Maps](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.03088/) (2019)
- [Image Matching across Wide Baselines: From Paper to Practice](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.01587/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 11 of 11)

- [Multi-Source Urban Traffic Flow Forecasting with Drone and Loop Detector Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.03492/) (2025)
- [Unveiling Stochasticity: Universal Multi-modal Probabilistic Modeling for Traffic Forecasting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.16084/) (2026)
- [Enhanced Vehicle Speed Detection Considering Lane Recognition Using Drone Videos in California](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.11239/) (2025)
- [FLUID: A Fine-Grained Lightweight Urban Signalized-Intersection Dataset of Dense Conflict Trajectories](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.00497/) (2025)
- [A Review of Vision-Based Vehicle Detection for UAV-Based Traffic Monitoring: Experimental Insights and Future Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.07571/) (2026)
- [Scalable Dynamic Origin-Destination Demand Estimation Enhanced by High-Resolution Satellite Imagery Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.22499/) (2025)
- [PoseDriver: A Unified Approach to Multi-Category Skeleton Detection for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.23215/) (2026)
- [A Topology-Aware Spatiotemporal Handover Framework for Continuous Multi-UAV Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.15779/) (2026)
- [SkyDrive: Learning to Drive in a New City from Aerial Traffic Monitoring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.25142/) (2026)
- [A Systematic Evaluation of Infrastructure-Based Radar System for Highway Traffic Monitoring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.27143/) (2026)
- [Synergizing Drone Delivery Order Pooling and Road Network Monitoring through Monitoring-Task Orderization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.05270/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

This paper presents a framework for extracting georeferenced vehicle trajectories from high-altitude drone imagery, addressing key challenges in urban traffic monitoring and the limitations of traditional ground-based systems. Our approach integrates several novel contributions, including a tailored object detector optimized for high-altitude bird's-eye view perspectives, a unique track stabilization method that uses detected vehicle bounding boxes as exclusion masks during image registration, and an orthophoto and master frame-based georeferencing strategy that enhances consistent alignment across multiple drone viewpoints. Additionally, our framework features robust vehicle dimension estimation and detailed road segmentation, enabling comprehensive traffic analysis. Conducted in the Songdo International Business District, South Korea, the study utilized a multi-drone experiment covering 20 intersections, capturing approximately 12TB of 4K video data over four days. The framework produced two high-quality datasets: the Songdo Traffic dataset, comprising approximately 700,000 unique vehicle trajectories, and the Songdo Vision dataset, containing over 5,000 human-annotated images with about 300,000 vehicle instances in four classes. Comparisons with high-precision sensor data from an instrumented probe vehicle highlight the accuracy and consistency of our extraction pipeline in dense urban environments. The public release of Songdo Traffic and Songdo Vision, and the complete source code for the extraction pipeline, establishes new benchmarks in data quality, reproducibility, and scalability in traffic research. Results demonstrate the potential of integrating drone technology with advanced computer vision for precise and cost-effective urban traffic monitoring, providing valuable resources for developing intelligent transportation systems and enhancing traffic management strategies.