Removing Cost Volumes from Optical Flow Estimators

Fuente: arXiv
Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Hauptverfasser: Kiefhaber, Simon, Roth, Stefan, Schaub-Meyer, Simone
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
_version_ 1866914094099988480
author Kiefhaber, Simon
Roth, Stefan
Schaub-Meyer, Simone
author_facet Kiefhaber, Simon
Roth, Stefan
Schaub-Meyer, Simone
contents Cost volumes are used in every modern optical flow estimator, but due to their computational and space complexity, they are often a limiting factor regarding both processing speed and the resolution of input frames. Motivated by our empirical observation that cost volumes lose their importance once all other network parts of, e.g., a RAFT-based pipeline have been sufficiently trained, we introduce a training strategy that allows removing the cost volume from optical flow estimators throughout training. This leads to significantly improved inference speed and reduced memory requirements. Using our training strategy, we create three different models covering different compute budgets. Our most accurate model reaches state-of-the-art accuracy while being $1.2\times$ faster and having a $6\times$ lower memory footprint than comparable models; our fastest model is capable of processing Full HD frames at $20\,\mathrm{FPS}$ using only $500\,\mathrm{MB}$ of GPU memory.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_13317
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Removing Cost Volumes from Optical Flow Estimators
Kiefhaber, Simon
Roth, Stefan
Schaub-Meyer, Simone
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
I.4.8
Cost volumes are used in every modern optical flow estimator, but due to their computational and space complexity, they are often a limiting factor regarding both processing speed and the resolution of input frames. Motivated by our empirical observation that cost volumes lose their importance once all other network parts of, e.g., a RAFT-based pipeline have been sufficiently trained, we introduce a training strategy that allows removing the cost volume from optical flow estimators throughout training. This leads to significantly improved inference speed and reduced memory requirements. Using our training strategy, we create three different models covering different compute budgets. Our most accurate model reaches state-of-the-art accuracy while being $1.2\times$ faster and having a $6\times$ lower memory footprint than comparable models; our fastest model is capable of processing Full HD frames at $20\,\mathrm{FPS}$ using only $500\,\mathrm{MB}$ of GPU memory.
title Removing Cost Volumes from Optical Flow Estimators
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
I.4.8
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.13317