Diffusion Models for Remote Sensing Imagery Semantic Segmentation

Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models have exhibited impressive performance for generative modelling of images. This paper aims to explore the potential of diffusion models for semantic segmentation tasks in the context of remote sensing. The major challenge of employing these models for semantic segmentation tasks is the generative nature of the model, which produces an arbitrary segmentation mask from a random noise input. Therefore, the diffusion process needs to be constrained to produce a segmentation mask that matches the target image. To address this issue, the denoising process is conditioned by utilizing the input image as a reference. In the experimental study, the proposed model is compared against other state-of-the-art semantic segmentation architectures using the Massachusetts Buildings Aerial dataset. The results of this study provide valuable insights into the potential of diffusion models for semantic segmentation tasks in the field of remote sensing.