Learning Pixel Trajectories with Multiscale Contrastive Random Walks

Self-supervised learning of optical flow, keypoint tracking, and video object segmentation via multiscale contrastive random walks on pixel-level space-time graphs.

We propose a unified self-supervised learning model for optical flow, keypoint tracking, and video object segmentation by innovating a multiscale contrastive random walk approach that integrates hierarchy into pixel-level space-time graphs.

Our model achieves performance on par with state-of-the-art unsupervised methods for optical flow and video object segmentation, and surpasses current self-supervised models in pose tracking. We introduce a new loss function that eliminates the need for hand-crafted features and utilizes cycle-consistency as an additional learning signal.

Key contributions:

  • A multiscale contrastive random walk formulation that naturally handles correspondence across different spatial scales
  • Cycle-consistency as a self-supervised learning signal for multi-frame training
  • Competitive results on DAVIS video object segmentation, JHMDB pose tracking, and Sintel/KITTI optical flow benchmarks

This work was done in collaboration with Allan Jabri, Alexei Efros, and Andrew Owens at the University of Michigan.

Published at CVPR 2022.

References