# OW-Rep: Open World Object Detection with Instance Representation Learning Source: [OW-Rep: Open World Object Detection with Instance Representation Learning]() Collection index: [llms.txt]() Data updated: 2025-12-24T05:00:04.857Z Authors: Sunoh Lee, Minsik Jeon, Jihong Min, Junwon Seo Published: 2024-09-24T13:13:34.000Z ## Abstract Open World Object Detection(OWOD) addresses realistic scenarios where unseen object classes emerge, enabling detectors trained on known classes to detect unknown objects and incrementally incorporate the knowledge they provide. While existing OWOD methods primarily focus on detecting unknown objects, they often overlook the rich semantic relationships between detected objects, which are essential for scene understanding and applications in open-world environments (e.g., open-world tracking and novel class discovery). In this paper, we extend the OWOD framework to jointly detect unknown objects and learn semantically rich instance embeddings, enabling the detector to capture fine-grained semantic relationships between instances. To this end, we propose two modules that leverage the rich and generalizable knowledge of Vision Foundation Models(VFMs) and can be integrated into open-world object detectors. First, the Unknown Box Refine Module uses instance masks from the Segment Anything Model to accurately localize unknown objects. The Embedding Transfer Module then distills instance-wise semantic similarities from VFM features to the detector's embeddings via a relaxed contrastive loss, enabling the detector to learn a semantically meaningful and generalizable instance feature. Extensive experiments show that our method significantly improves both unknown object detection and instance embedding quality, while also enhancing performance in downstream tasks such as open-world tracking. ## Recorded benchmark results A research result applies to its stated dataset, split, metric and evaluation configuration. Compare like-for-like settings, preserve the metric's unit and direction, and distinguish paper-reported results from independent reproduction. The best result recorded here is not a claim of exhaustive, current global coverage. ## Original sources and implementation [Original paper]() [PDF]()