Intermediate · Evaluation
Intersection over union (IoU)
Visual diagram · (in preparation) · Math · (in preparation) · Worked example · 3 difficulty levels.
TL;DR. A metric measuring the overlap between two bounding boxes, calculated as the intersection area divided by the union area.
Technical Definition
A metric measuring the overlap between two bounding boxes, calculated as the intersection area divided by the union area.
How it works
Intersection over Union (IoU) is a key metric in object detection tasks within computer vision. It calculates the ratio of the area of overlap between a predicted bounding box and a ground-truth bounding box to the area of their union. An IoU value ranges from 0 (no overlap) to 1 (perfect overlap), indicating how accurately the model's prediction matches the actual object's location.
Related Concepts
- Object Detection — A computer vision task that identifies and localizes multiple objects in an image with bounding boxes.
- Computer vision — Computer vision enables computers to interpret and understand information from digital images and videos, automating tasks typically done by human sight.
- Bounding box — A rectangle defined by coordinates surrounding a region of interest in an image, often used in object detection.