Occlusion Techniques in Computer Vision

Occlusion techniques in computer vision are a crucial method to combat overfitting, a common issue where models perform poorly on unseen data. These techniques involve intentionally blocking parts of an image during training to prevent models from relying solely on canonical features, thus enhancing their ability to generalize. Various occlusion strategies are employed, such as Random Erase, Cutout, Hide and Seek, and Grid Mask, which randomly hide sections of an image. Newer methods like CutMix and Mosaic push the boundaries by replacing parts of an image with sections from others or stitching multiple images together, respectively, forcing models to adapt to varying contexts and occlusions. These strategies have shown promise in improving model resilience and performance, particularly when training data is limited or prone to displaying objects in a certain way, as demonstrated through a chess piece detection model. Exploring these techniques can significantly enhance a model's capacity to generalize beyond its training data, offering a robust approach to developing more effective computer vision applications.