Understanding the Challenges When 3D Semantic Segmentation Faces Class Imbalanced and OOD Data

3D semantic segmentation (3DSS) is an essential process in the creation of a safe autonomous driving system. However, deep learning models for 3D semantic segmentation often suffer from the class imbalance problem and out-of-distribution (OOD) data. In this study, we explore how the class imbalance problem affects 3DSS performance and whether the model can detect the category prediction correctness, or whether data is ID or OOD. For these purposes, we conduct two experiments using four representative 3DSS models and five trust scoring methods, and conduct both a confusion and feature analysis of each class. Furthermore, a data augmentation method for the 3D LiDAR dataset is proposed to create a new dataset based on SemanticKITTI and SemanticPOSS, called AugKITTI. We propose the wPre metric and TSD for a more in-depth analysis of the results, and follow are proposals with an insightful discussion. Based on the experimental results, we find that: 1) classes are not only imbalanced in their data size but also in the basic properties of each semantic category; 2) intraclass diversity and interclass ambiguity make class learning difficult and greatly limit the models’ performance, creating the challenges of semantic and data gaps; 3) trust scores are unreliable for classes whose features are confused with other classes. For 3DSS models, those misclassified ID classes and OODs may also be given high trust scores, making the 3DSS predictions unreliable, and leading to the challenges in judging 3DSS result trustworthiness. All of these outcomes point to several research directions for improving the performance and reliability of the 3DSS models used for real-world applications.