Training Deformable Part Models with Decorrelated Features

In this paper, we show how to train a deformable part model (DPM) fast-typically in less than 20 minutes, or four times faster than the current fastest method-while maintaining high average precision on the PASCAL VOC datasets. At the core of our approach is "latent LDA," a novel generalization of linear discriminant analysis for learning latent variable models. Unlike latent SVM, latent LDA uses efficient closed-form updates and does not require an expensive search for hard negative examples. Our approach also acts as a springboard for a detailed experimental study of DPM training. We isolate and quantify the impact of key training factors for the first time (e.g., How important are discriminative SVM filters? How important is joint parameter estimation? How many negative images are needed for training?). Our findings yield useful insights for researchers working with Markov random fields and part-based models, and have practical implications for speeding up tasks such as model selection.