VME: A Satellite Imagery Dataset and Benchmark for Detecting Vehicles in the Middle East and Beyond

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Al-Emadi, Noora, Weber, Ingmar, Yang, Yin, Ofli, Ferda
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Al-Emadi, Noora
Weber, Ingmar
Yang, Yin
Ofli, Ferda
author_facet Al-Emadi, Noora
Weber, Ingmar
Yang, Yin
Ofli, Ferda
contents Detecting vehicles in satellite images is crucial for traffic management, urban planning, and disaster response. However, current models struggle with real-world diversity, particularly across different regions. This challenge is amplified by geographic bias in existing datasets, which often focus on specific areas and overlook regions like the Middle East. To address this gap, we present the Vehicles in the Middle East (VME) dataset, designed explicitly for vehicle detection in high-resolution satellite images from Middle Eastern countries. Sourced from Maxar, the VME dataset spans 54 cities across 12 countries, comprising over 4,000 image tiles and more than 100,000 vehicles, annotated using both manual and semi-automated methods. Additionally, we introduce the largest benchmark dataset for Car Detection in Satellite Imagery (CDSI), combining images from multiple sources to enhance global car detection. Our experiments demonstrate that models trained on existing datasets perform poorly on Middle Eastern images, while the VME dataset significantly improves detection accuracy in this region. Moreover, state-of-the-art models trained on CDSI achieve substantial improvements in global car detection.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_22353
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle VME: A Satellite Imagery Dataset and Benchmark for Detecting Vehicles in the Middle East and Beyond
Al-Emadi, Noora
Weber, Ingmar
Yang, Yin
Ofli, Ferda
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Detecting vehicles in satellite images is crucial for traffic management, urban planning, and disaster response. However, current models struggle with real-world diversity, particularly across different regions. This challenge is amplified by geographic bias in existing datasets, which often focus on specific areas and overlook regions like the Middle East. To address this gap, we present the Vehicles in the Middle East (VME) dataset, designed explicitly for vehicle detection in high-resolution satellite images from Middle Eastern countries. Sourced from Maxar, the VME dataset spans 54 cities across 12 countries, comprising over 4,000 image tiles and more than 100,000 vehicles, annotated using both manual and semi-automated methods. Additionally, we introduce the largest benchmark dataset for Car Detection in Satellite Imagery (CDSI), combining images from multiple sources to enhance global car detection. Our experiments demonstrate that models trained on existing datasets perform poorly on Middle Eastern images, while the VME dataset significantly improves detection accuracy in this region. Moreover, state-of-the-art models trained on CDSI achieve substantial improvements in global car detection.
title VME: A Satellite Imagery Dataset and Benchmark for Detecting Vehicles in the Middle East and Beyond
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.22353