More precise edge detections

Image Edge detection (ED) is a base task in computer vision. While the performance of the ED algorithm has been improved greatly by introducing CNN-based models, current models still suffer from unsatisfactory precision rates especially when only a low error toleration distance is allowed. Therefore, model architecture for more precise predictions still needs an investigation. On the other hand, the unavoidable noise training data provided by humans would lead to unsatisfactory model predictions even when inputs are edge maps themselves, which also needs improvement. In this paper, more precise ED models are presented with cascaded skipping density blocks (CSDB). Our models obtain state-of-the-art(SOTA) predictions in several datasets, especially in average precision rate (AP), which is confirmed by extensive experiments. Moreover, our models do not include down-sample operations, demonstrating those widely believed operations are not necessary. Also, a novel modification on data augmentation for training is employed, which allows noiseless data to be employed in model training and thus improves the performance of models predicting on edge maps themselves.