Need a dog for seeing eye? A Walk Viewpoint Dataset for Freespace Detection in Unstructured Environments

Freespace Detection (FD) is crucial for robust and safe autonomous navigation. However, existing datasets usually concentrate on structure road environments. The FD in unstructured environments, e.g., walk assistance for the visually-impaired, has been rarely investigated. In this paper, We propose a novel dataset called the Walk Viewpoint Dataset (WVD). Different from the previous datasets, we focus on the walk viewpoint, where FD can provide the potential for improving the walking of visually impaired people. The target regions of WVD are annotated with 20 categories by fine-grained labels, which consist of 3,737 images and depth images. Moreover, we propose a new annotation hierarchy, which allows different degrees of complexity and creates opportunities for new training methods. Finally, our study provides the statistical analysis of label characteristics and baseline analysis, which demonstrates its distinction compared to previous datasets. The dataset can be accessed through the project pages: http://www.sensingAI.com.cn.