# Do We Need Perfect Data? Leveraging Noise for Domain Generalized Segmentation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.22948 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.22948/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 30 of its 39 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 28 Nov 2025.

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

- [Fully Convolutional Networks for Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1411.4038/) (2014)
- [The Cityscapes Dataset for Semantic Urban Scene Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1604.01685/) (2016)
- [DeepLab: Semantic Image Segmentation with Deep Convolutional Nets, Atrous Convolution, and Fully Connected CRFs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.00915/) (2016)
- [Unsupervised Domain Adaptation by Backpropagation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.7495/) (2014)
- [BDD100K: A Diverse Driving Dataset for Heterogeneous Multitask Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.04687/) (2018)
- [CyCADA: Cycle-Consistent Adversarial Domain Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.03213/) (2017)
- [Deeper, Broader and Artier Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.03077/) (2017)
- [Playing for Data: Ground Truth from Computer Games](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.02192/) (2016)
- [Domain Generalization by Solving Jigsaw Puzzles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.06864/) (2019)
- [Two at Once: Enhancing Learning and Generalization Capacities via IBN-Net](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.09441/) (2018)
- [Universal Style Transfer via Feature Transforms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.08086/) (2017)
- [Taking A Closer Look at Domain Shift: Category-level Adversaries for Semantics Consistent Domain Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.09478/) (2018)
- [Domain Randomization and Pyramid Consistency: Simulation-to-Real Generalization without Accessing Target Domain Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.00889/) (2019)
- [RobustNet: Improving Domain Generalization in Urban-Scene Segmentation via Instance Selective Whitening](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.15597/) (2021)
- [FSDR: Frequency Space Domain Randomization for Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.02370/) (2021)
- [Improving Semantic Segmentation via Decoupled Body and Edge Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.10035/) (2020)
- [Style-Hallucinated Dual Consistency Learning for Domain Generalized Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.02548/) (2022)
- [Adversarial Style Augmentation for Domain Generalized Urban-Scene Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.04892/) (2022)
- [InverseForm: A Loss Function for Structured Boundary-Aware Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.02745/) (2021)
- [Global and Local Texture Randomization for Synthetic-to-Real Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.02376/) (2021)
- [DGInStyle: Domain-Generalizable Semantic Segmentation with Image Diffusion Models and Stylized Semantic Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.03048/) (2023)
- [Domain Adaptive Object Detection for Autonomous Driving under Foggy Weather](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.15176/) (2022)
- [Classification With an Edge: Improving Semantic Image Segmentation with Boundary Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.01337/) (2016)
- [Collaborating Foundation Models for Domain Generalized Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.09788/) (2023)
- [A Simple Recipe for Language-guided Domain Generalized Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17922/) (2023)
- [Texture Learning Domain Randomization for Domain Generalized Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.11546/) (2023)
- [Adversarial Supervision Makes Layout-to-Image Diffusion Models Thrive](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.08815/) (2024)
- [Intra-Source Style Augmentation for Improved Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.10175/) (2022)
- [Exploring Semantic Consistency and Style Diversity for Domain Generalized Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.12050/) (2024)
- [Shape-Biased Domain Generalization via Shock Graph Embeddings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.05671/) (2021)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Domain generalization in semantic segmentation faces challenges from domain shifts, particularly under adverse conditions. While diffusion-based data generation methods show promise, they introduce inherent misalignment between generated images and semantic masks. This paper presents FLEX-Seg (FLexible Edge eXploitation for Segmentation), a framework that transforms this limitation into an opportunity for robust learning. FLEX-Seg comprises three key components: (1) Granular Adaptive Prototypes that captures boundary characteristics across multiple scales, (2) Uncertainty Boundary Emphasis that dynamically adjusts learning emphasis based on prediction entropy, and (3) Hardness-Aware Sampling that progressively focuses on challenging examples. By leveraging inherent misalignment rather than enforcing strict alignment, FLEX-Seg learns robust representations while capturing rich stylistic variations. Experiments across five real-world datasets demonstrate consistent improvements over state-of-the-art methods, achieving 2.44% and 2.63% mIoU gains on ACDC and Dark Zurich. Our findings validate that adaptive strategies for handling imperfect synthetic data lead to superior domain generalization. Code is available at https://github.com/VisualScienceLab-KHU/FLEX-Seg.