Integration of Spatial and Co-Existence Relationships to Improve Administrative Region Target Detection in Map Images

Administrative regions are fundamental geographic elements on maps, thus making their detection in map images crucial to enhancing intelligent map interpretation. However, existing methods in this field primarily depend on the texture features within the images and do not account for the influence of spatial and co-existence relationships among different targets. In this study, taking the administrative regions of the Chinese Mainland, Taiwan, Tibet, and Henan as test targets, we employed the spatial and co-existence relationships of pairs of targets to improve target detection performance. Firstly, these four regions were detected using a simple Single-Target Cascading detection model based on RetinaNet. Subsequently, the detection results were adjusted with the spatial and co-existence relationships of each pair of targets. The adjusted outcomes demonstrate a significant increase in target detection accuracy, as well as precision (from 0.62 to 0.96) and F1 score (from 0.76 to 0.88), for the Chinese Mainland target. This study contributes to the advancement of intelligent map interpretation.