MapSAM2: Adapting SAM2 for Automatic Segmentation of Historical Map Images and Time Series

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Xia, Xue, Balestriero, Randall, Zhang, Tao, Zhou, Yixin, Ding, Andrew, Saini, Dev, Hurni, Lorenz
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Xia, Xue
Balestriero, Randall
Zhang, Tao
Zhou, Yixin
Ding, Andrew
Saini, Dev
Hurni, Lorenz
author_facet Xia, Xue
Balestriero, Randall
Zhang, Tao
Zhou, Yixin
Ding, Andrew
Saini, Dev
Hurni, Lorenz
contents Historical maps are unique and valuable archives that document geographic features across different time periods. However, automated analysis of historical map images remains a significant challenge due to their wide stylistic variability and the scarcity of annotated training data. Constructing linked spatio-temporal datasets from historical map time series is even more time-consuming and labor-intensive, as it requires synthesizing information from multiple maps. Such datasets are essential for applications such as dating buildings, analyzing the development of road networks and settlements, studying environmental changes etc. We present MapSAM2, a unified framework for automatically segmenting both historical map images and time series. Built on a visual foundation model, MapSAM2 adapts to diverse segmentation tasks with few-shot fine-tuning. Our key innovation is to treat both historical map images and time series as videos. For images, we process a set of tiles as a video, enabling the memory attention mechanism to incorporate contextual cues from similar tiles, leading to improved geometric accuracy, particularly for areal features. For time series, we introduce the annotated Siegfried Building Time Series Dataset and, to reduce annotation costs, propose generating pseudo time series from single-year maps by simulating common temporal transformations. Experimental results show that MapSAM2 learns temporal associations effectively and can accurately segment and link buildings in time series under limited supervision or using pseudo videos. We will release both our dataset and code to support future research.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_27547
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle MapSAM2: Adapting SAM2 for Automatic Segmentation of Historical Map Images and Time Series
Xia, Xue
Balestriero, Randall
Zhang, Tao
Zhou, Yixin
Ding, Andrew
Saini, Dev
Hurni, Lorenz
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Historical maps are unique and valuable archives that document geographic features across different time periods. However, automated analysis of historical map images remains a significant challenge due to their wide stylistic variability and the scarcity of annotated training data. Constructing linked spatio-temporal datasets from historical map time series is even more time-consuming and labor-intensive, as it requires synthesizing information from multiple maps. Such datasets are essential for applications such as dating buildings, analyzing the development of road networks and settlements, studying environmental changes etc. We present MapSAM2, a unified framework for automatically segmenting both historical map images and time series. Built on a visual foundation model, MapSAM2 adapts to diverse segmentation tasks with few-shot fine-tuning. Our key innovation is to treat both historical map images and time series as videos. For images, we process a set of tiles as a video, enabling the memory attention mechanism to incorporate contextual cues from similar tiles, leading to improved geometric accuracy, particularly for areal features. For time series, we introduce the annotated Siegfried Building Time Series Dataset and, to reduce annotation costs, propose generating pseudo time series from single-year maps by simulating common temporal transformations. Experimental results show that MapSAM2 learns temporal associations effectively and can accurately segment and link buildings in time series under limited supervision or using pseudo videos. We will release both our dataset and code to support future research.
title MapSAM2: Adapting SAM2 for Automatic Segmentation of Historical Map Images and Time Series
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.27547