CI-ICM: Channel Importance-driven Learned Image Coding for Machines

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Zhang, Yun, Liu, Junle, Zhang, Huan, Pan, Zhaoqing, Jiang, Gangyi, Lin, Weisi
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Zhang, Yun
Liu, Junle
Zhang, Huan
Pan, Zhaoqing
Jiang, Gangyi
Lin, Weisi
author_facet Zhang, Yun
Liu, Junle
Zhang, Huan
Pan, Zhaoqing
Jiang, Gangyi
Lin, Weisi
contents Traditional human vision-centric image compression methods are suboptimal for machine vision centric compression due to different visual properties and feature characteristics. To address this problem, we propose a Channel Importance-driven learned Image Coding for Machines (CI-ICM), aiming to maximize the performance of machine vision tasks at a given bitrate constraint. First, we propose a Channel Importance Generation (CIG) module to quantify channel importance in machine vision and develop a channel order loss to rank channels in descending order. Second, to properly allocate bitrate among feature channels, we propose a Feature Channel Grouping and Scaling (FCGS) module that non-uniformly groups the feature channels based on their importance and adjusts the dynamic range of each group. Based on FCGS, we further propose a Channel Importance-based Context (CI-CTX) module to allocate bits among feature groups and to preserve higher fidelity in critical channels. Third, to adapt to multiple machine tasks, we propose a Task-Specific Channel Adaptation (TSCA) module to adaptively enhance features for multiple downstream machine tasks. Experimental results on the COCO2017 dataset show that the proposed CI-ICM achieves BD-mAP@50:95 gains of 16.25$\%$ in object detection and 13.72$\%$ in instance segmentation over the established baseline codec. Ablation studies validate the effectiveness of each contribution, and computation complexity analysis reveals the practicability of the CI-ICM. This work establishes feature channel optimization for machine vision-centric compression, bridging the gap between image coding and machine perception.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_05347
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle CI-ICM: Channel Importance-driven Learned Image Coding for Machines
Zhang, Yun
Liu, Junle
Zhang, Huan
Pan, Zhaoqing
Jiang, Gangyi
Lin, Weisi
Image and Video Processing
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Multimedia
Traditional human vision-centric image compression methods are suboptimal for machine vision centric compression due to different visual properties and feature characteristics. To address this problem, we propose a Channel Importance-driven learned Image Coding for Machines (CI-ICM), aiming to maximize the performance of machine vision tasks at a given bitrate constraint. First, we propose a Channel Importance Generation (CIG) module to quantify channel importance in machine vision and develop a channel order loss to rank channels in descending order. Second, to properly allocate bitrate among feature channels, we propose a Feature Channel Grouping and Scaling (FCGS) module that non-uniformly groups the feature channels based on their importance and adjusts the dynamic range of each group. Based on FCGS, we further propose a Channel Importance-based Context (CI-CTX) module to allocate bits among feature groups and to preserve higher fidelity in critical channels. Third, to adapt to multiple machine tasks, we propose a Task-Specific Channel Adaptation (TSCA) module to adaptively enhance features for multiple downstream machine tasks. Experimental results on the COCO2017 dataset show that the proposed CI-ICM achieves BD-mAP@50:95 gains of 16.25$\%$ in object detection and 13.72$\%$ in instance segmentation over the established baseline codec. Ablation studies validate the effectiveness of each contribution, and computation complexity analysis reveals the practicability of the CI-ICM. This work establishes feature channel optimization for machine vision-centric compression, bridging the gap between image coding and machine perception.
title CI-ICM: Channel Importance-driven Learned Image Coding for Machines
topic Image and Video Processing
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Multimedia
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.05347