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Article

Semantic Segmentation of Sika Deer Antler Image by U-Net Based on Two-Dimensional Discrete Wavelet Transform Fusion and Multi-Attention Mechanism

1
College of Information Technology, Jilin Agricultural University, Changchun 130118, China
2
Jilin Province Intelligent Environmental Engineering Research Center, Changchun 130118, China
3
College of Animal Science and Technology, Jilin Agricultural University, Changchun 130118, China
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Animals 2025, 15(10), 1388; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani15101388
Submission received: 17 March 2025 / Revised: 7 May 2025 / Accepted: 8 May 2025 / Published: 11 May 2025
(This article belongs to the Section Animal System and Management)

Simple Summary

Monitoring the antler growth status of sika deer is of great significance for sika deer antler grading and sika deer class identification, and it also has a role in promoting the process of intelligent breeding of sika deer. In this study, a new network model for segmentation of sika deer antlers was developed based on the U-Net by incorporating innovative modules and attention mechanisms. The method was evaluated using datasets of antler images from adult sika deer. It not only has high accuracy in segmentation tasks but is also very friendly to hardware resources. This provides the data and technological support for sika deer antler quality assessment and grading.

Abstract

At present, the monitoring technology of the growth status of sika deer antlers faces many challenges in a complex breeding environment (such as light change, object occlusion, etc.). More importantly, an effective method for the segmentation of sika deer antlers is still lacking, which hinders the development of subsequent quality classification of sika deer antlers. In order to fill the research gap and lay a foundation for future sika deer antler quality classification, this paper proposed an improved semantic segmentation model based on U-Net, named SDAS-Net. In order to improve the segmentation accuracy and generalization ability of the model in a complex environment, we introduced a two-dimensional discrete wavelet transform module (2D-DWT) in the encoder head to reduce noise interference and enhance the ability to capture features. In order to compensate for the loss of feature information caused by 2D-DWT, we embedded the Star Blocks module in the encoder. In addition, the efficient mixed channel attention (EMCA) module was introduced to adaptively enhance key feature channels in the decoder, and the dual cross-attention mechanism (DCA) module was used to fuse high-dimensional features in skip connections. To verify the validity of the model, we constructed a 1055-image sika deer antler dataset (SDR). The experimental results show that compared with the baseline model, the performance of the SDAS-Net model is significantly improved, reaching 92.12% in MIoU and 93.63% in the PA index, and the number of parameters is only increased by 6.9%. The results show that the SDAS-Net model can effectively deal with the task of sika deer antler segmentation in a complex breeding environment while maintaining high precision.
Keywords: sika deer antler; semantic segmentation; U-Net; 2D-DWT; EMCA sika deer antler; semantic segmentation; U-Net; 2D-DWT; EMCA

Share and Cite

MDPI and ACS Style

Gong, H.; Wei, J.; Sun, Y.; Li, Z.; Gong, H.; Fan, J. Semantic Segmentation of Sika Deer Antler Image by U-Net Based on Two-Dimensional Discrete Wavelet Transform Fusion and Multi-Attention Mechanism. Animals 2025, 15, 1388. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani15101388

AMA Style

Gong H, Wei J, Sun Y, Li Z, Gong H, Fan J. Semantic Segmentation of Sika Deer Antler Image by U-Net Based on Two-Dimensional Discrete Wavelet Transform Fusion and Multi-Attention Mechanism. Animals. 2025; 15(10):1388. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani15101388

Chicago/Turabian Style

Gong, Haotian, Jinfan Wei, Yu Sun, Zhipeng Li, He Gong, and Juanjuan Fan. 2025. "Semantic Segmentation of Sika Deer Antler Image by U-Net Based on Two-Dimensional Discrete Wavelet Transform Fusion and Multi-Attention Mechanism" Animals 15, no. 10: 1388. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani15101388

APA Style

Gong, H., Wei, J., Sun, Y., Li, Z., Gong, H., & Fan, J. (2025). Semantic Segmentation of Sika Deer Antler Image by U-Net Based on Two-Dimensional Discrete Wavelet Transform Fusion and Multi-Attention Mechanism. Animals, 15(10), 1388. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani15101388

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