A Systematic Survey of ML Datasets for Prime CV Research Areas—Media and Metadata

The ever-growing capabilities of computers have enabled pursuing Computer Vision through Machine Learning (i.e., MLCV). ML tools require large amounts of information to learn from (ML datasets). These are costly to produce but have received reduced attention regarding standardization. This prevents the cooperative production and exploitation of these resources, impedes countless synergies, and hinders ML research. No global view exists of the MLCV dataset tissue. Acquiring it is fundamental to enable standardization. We provide an extensive survey of the evolution and current state of MLCV datasets (1994 to 2019) for a set of specific CV areas as well as a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the results. Data were gathered from online scientific databases (e.g., Google Scholar, CiteSeerX). We reveal the heterogeneous plethora that comprises the MLCV dataset tissue; their continuous growth in volume and complexity; the specificities of the evolution of their media and metadata components regarding a range of aspects; and that MLCV progress requires the construction of a global standardized (structuring, manipulating, and sharing) MLCV “library”. Accordingly, we formulate a novel interpretation of this dataset collective as a global tissue of synthetic cognitive visual memories and define the immediately necessary steps to advance its standardization and integration.