Occlusion-Aware Plane-Constraints for Monocular 3D Object Detection

The task of 3D object detection poses a significant challenge for 3D scene understanding and is primarily employed in the fields of robot control and autonomous driving. Monocular-based 3D detection methods are more cost-effective and practical than stereo-based or LiDAR-based methods. Monocular image 3D detection methods have garnered considerable attention from researchers. However, the impact of occlusion scenarios of the objects on the keypoints prediction is often overlooked. To address this issue, the present paper proposes a novel 3D monocular object detection method named MonOAPC, which is equipped with occlusion-aware plane-constraints. This method can adaptively utilize partial keypoints to infer the plane location of the object based on the level of occlusion and highlights that the introduction of plane constraints is advantageous for the 3D detection task. First, the plane information of the object in 3D space is beneficial to optimize the keypoints regression, and considering that each plane holds different significance, an adaptive plane location inference module is proposed to enhance the keypoints location regression. Second, a novel co-depth estimation module is proposed to jointly estimate the object’s spatial location through various depth inference methods, thereby improving the generalization of the object depth estimation. Furthermore, the paper demonstrates that the accuracy of 3D object detection can be indirectly improved by introducing plane information to promote keypoints regression, and that plane information is effective for monocular 3D detection. The experimental outcomes show that the MonOAPC method can attain competitive results.