Counting Method Based on Density Graph Regression and Object Detection

In response to the low recall rate of detection-based methods and the problem of missing target location information in density-based methods, which are the two mainstream dense-counting methods, a detection and counting method based on density map regression is proposed by combining the two tasks, achieving the counting and positioning of target objects in dense scenes. Complementing the advantages of two methods not only improves recall rate but also calibrates all targets. To extract richer feature information to deal with complex data scenarios, a feature pyramid optimization module is proposed, which vertically fuses low-level high-resolution features with top-level abstract semantic features and horizontally fuses same-size features to enrich the semantic expression of target objects. To address the issue of low pixel proportions occupied by target objects in dense counting scenarios, an attention mechanism for small targets is proposed to improve the network’s detection sensitivity, which can enhance the attention of the network to target objects by constructing a mask on the input image. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method significantly improves recall rate and accurately locates targets while maintaining accuracy, effectively providing counting and positioning information of input image, which has a wide range of application prospects in various fields such as industry and ecology.