Multi-dimensional feature learning for visible-infrared person re-identification

Abstract

Visible-infrared person re-identification (VI-ReID) is a challenging task due to significant differences between modalities and feature representation of visible and infrared images. The primary goal of current VI-ReID is to reduce discrepancies between modalities. However, existing research primarily focuses on learning modality-invariant features. Due to significant modality differences, it is challenging to learn an effectively common feature space. Moreover, the intra-modality differences have not been well addressed. Therefore, a novel multi-dimensional feature learning network (MFLNet) is proposed in this paper to tackle the inherent challenges of intra-modality and inter-modality differences in VI-ReID. Specifically, to effectively address intra-modality variations, we employ the random local shear (RLS) augmentation, which accurately simulates viewpoint and posture changes. This augmentation can be seamlessly incorporated into other methods without modifying the network or parameters. Additionally, we integrate the multi-dimensional information mining (MIM) module to extract discriminative features and bridge the gap between modalities. Moreover, the cyclical smoothing focal (CSF) loss is introduced to prioritize challenging samples during training, thereby enhancing the ReID performance. Finally, the experimental results indicate that the proposed MFLNet outperforms other VI-ReID approaches on the SYSU-MM01, RegDB and LLCM datasets.