# A Data-Centric Approach to 3D Semantic Segmentation of Railway Scenes

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.18213 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.18213/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 24 of its 40 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 25 Apr 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 24 of 24)

- [PointNet: Deep Learning on Point Sets for 3D Classification and Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.00593/) (2016)
- [PointNet++: Deep Hierarchical Feature Learning on Point Sets in a Metric Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.02413/) (2017)
- [Scalability in Perception for Autonomous Driving: Waymo Open Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.04838/) (2019)
- [SegNet: A Deep Convolutional Encoder-Decoder Architecture for Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.00561/) (2015)
- [Point Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.00931/) (2020)
- [KPConv: Flexible and Deformable Convolution for Point Clouds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.08889/) (2019)
- [PointRCNN: 3D Object Proposal Generation and Detection from Point Cloud](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.04244/) (2018)
- [BEVFusion: Multi-Task Multi-Sensor Fusion with Unified Bird's-Eye View Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.13542/) (2022)
- [Frustum PointNets for 3D Object Detection from RGB-D Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.08488/) (2017)
- [Cylindrical and Asymmetrical 3D Convolution Networks for LiDAR Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.10033/) (2020)
- [Point Transformer V2: Grouped Vector Attention and Partition-based Pooling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.05666/) (2022)
- [RPVNet: A Deep and Efficient Range-Point-Voxel Fusion Network for LiDAR Point Cloud Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.12978/) (2021)
- [Point-to-Voxel Knowledge Distillation for LiDAR Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.02099/) (2022)
- [EfficientPS: Efficient Panoptic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.02307/) (2020)
- [EfficientLPS: Efficient LiDAR Panoptic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.08009/) (2021)
- [PolarMix: A General Data Augmentation Technique for LiDAR Point Clouds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.00223/) (2022)
- [Attention-guided Unified Network for Panoptic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.03904/) (2018)
- [CENet: Toward Concise and Efficient LiDAR Semantic Segmentation for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.12691/) (2022)
- [Improving 3D Object Detection through Progressive Population Based Augmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.00831/) (2020)
- [Part-Aware Data Augmentation for 3D Object Detection in Point Cloud](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.13373/) (2020)
- [Are we Missing Confidence in Pseudo-LiDAR Methods for Monocular 3D Object Detection?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.05796/) (2020)
- [Advancements in Point Cloud Data Augmentation for Deep Learning: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.12113/) (2023)
- [OSDaR23: Open Sensor Data for Rail 2023](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.03001/) (2023)
- [MemorySeg: Online LiDAR Semantic Segmentation with a Latent Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.01556/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

LiDAR-based semantic segmentation is critical for autonomous trains, requiring accurate predictions across varying distances. This paper introduces two targeted data augmentation methods designed to improve segmentation performance on the railway-specific OSDaR23 dataset. The person instance pasting method enhances segmentation of pedestrians at distant ranges by injecting realistic variations into the dataset. The track sparsification method redistributes point density in LiDAR scans, improving track segmentation at far distances with minimal impact on close-range accuracy. Both methods are evaluated using a state-of-the-art 3D semantic segmentation network, demonstrating significant improvements in distant-range performance while maintaining robustness in close-range predictions. We establish the first 3D semantic segmentation benchmark for OSDaR23, demonstrating the potential of data-centric approaches to address railway-specific challenges in autonomous train perception.