# GauCho: Gaussian Distributions with Cholesky Decomposition for Oriented Object Detection

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.01565 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.01565/

## Key facts

- Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 29 of its 45 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 3 Feb 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 29 of 29)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [FCOS: Fully Convolutional One-Stage Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.01355/) (2019)
- [Objects as Points](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.07850/) (2019)
- [DOTA: A Large-scale Dataset for Object Detection in Aerial Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.10398/) (2017)
- [Bridging the Gap Between Anchor-based and Anchor-free Detection via Adaptive Training Sample Selection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.02424/) (2019)
- [Object Detection in Aerial Images: A Large-Scale Benchmark and Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.12219/) (2021)
- [ReDet: A Rotation-equivariant Detector for Aerial Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.07733/) (2021)
- [iSAID: A Large-scale Dataset for Instance Segmentation in Aerial Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.12886/) (2019)
- [R3Det: Refined Single-Stage Detector with Feature Refinement for Rotating Object](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.05612/) (2019)
- [Align Deep Features for Oriented Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.09397/) (2020)
- [Rethinking Rotated Object Detection with Gaussian Wasserstein Distance Loss](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.11952/) (2021)
- [Learning High-Precision Bounding Box for Rotated Object Detection via Kullback-Leibler Divergence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.01883/) (2021)
- [IoU Loss for 2D/3D Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.03851/) (2019)
- [MMRotate: A Rotated Object Detection Benchmark using PyTorch](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.13317/) (2022)
- [Oriented RepPoints for Aerial Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.11111/) (2021)
- [Dense Label Encoding for Boundary Discontinuity Free Rotation Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.09670/) (2020)
- [The KFIoU Loss for Rotated Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.12558/) (2022)
- [Dynamic Anchor Learning for Arbitrary-Oriented Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.04150/) (2020)
- [SCRDet++: Detecting Small, Cluttered and Rotated Objects via Instance-Level Feature Denoising and Rotation Loss Smoothing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.13316/) (2020)
- [PIoU Loss: Towards Accurate Oriented Object Detection in Complex Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.09584/) (2020)
- [Phase-Shifting Coder: Predicting Accurate Orientation in Oriented Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.06368/) (2022)
- [Detecting Rotated Objects as Gaussian Distributions and Its 3-D Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.10839/) (2022)
- [CFC-Net: A Critical Feature Capturing Network for Arbitrary-Oriented Object Detection in Remote Sensing Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.06849/) (2021)
- [Optimization for Arbitrary-Oriented Object Detection via Representation Invariance Loss](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.11636/) (2021)
- [Gaussian Bounding Boxes and Probabilistic Intersection-over-Union for Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.06072/) (2021)
- [Rethinking Boundary Discontinuity Problem for Oriented Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.10061/) (2023)
- [Theoretically Achieving Continuous Representation of Oriented Bounding Boxes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.18975/) (2024)
- [FRED: Towards a Full Rotation-Equivariance in Aerial Image Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.06159/) (2023)
- [DAFNe: A One-Stage Anchor-Free Approach for Oriented Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.06148/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [Real-Time Oriented Object Detection Transformer in Remote Sensing Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.15497/) (2026)
- [STAR-IOD: Scale-decoupled Topology Alignment with Pseudo-label Refinement for Remote Sensing Incremental Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.20738/) (2026)
- [Towards Large Scale Geostatistical Methane Monitoring with Part-based Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.18513/) (2025)
- [Fourier Series Coder: A Novel Perspective on Angle Boundary Discontinuity Problem for Oriented Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.20281/) (2026)
- [Adaptive Spectrum-Aware Feature Disentangled Network for Small Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.29029/) (2026)
- [Geometry Meets Semantics: Fractional Gradient Stabilization for Semantic-Driven Bounding Box Optimization in Visual Detection Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.23530/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Oriented Object Detection (OOD) has received increased attention in the past years, being a suitable solution for detecting elongated objects in remote sensing analysis. In particular, using regression loss functions based on Gaussian distributions has become attractive since they yield simple and differentiable terms. However, existing solutions are still based on regression heads that produce Oriented Bounding Boxes (OBBs), and the known problem of angular boundary discontinuity persists. In this work, we propose a regression head for OOD that directly produces Gaussian distributions based on the Cholesky matrix decomposition. The proposed head, named GauCho, theoretically mitigates the boundary discontinuity problem and is fully compatible with recent Gaussian-based regression loss functions. Furthermore, we advocate using Oriented Ellipses (OEs) to represent oriented objects, which relates to GauCho through a bijective function and alleviates the encoding ambiguity problem for circular objects. Our experimental results show that GauCho can be a viable alternative to the traditional OBB head, achieving results comparable to or better than state-of-the-art detectors for the challenging dataset DOTA