Phase 4: Vision Transformers · ~45 minutes · Python

Keypoint Detection & Pose Estimation

A pose is a set of ordered keypoints. A keypoint detector is a heatmap regressor. Everything else is bookkeeping.

What you will learn

Distinguish top-down and bottom-up pose estimation and state when each is used
Regress heatmaps for K keypoints with a Gaussian-per-keypoint target and extract keypoint coordinates at inference
Explain Part Affinity Fields (PAFs) and how bottom-up pipelines associate keypoints into instances
Use MediaPipe Pose or MMPose for production keypoint estimation and understand their output format

Introduction

Type: Build
Languages: Python
Prerequisites: Object Detection — YOLO from Scratch, Semantic Segmentation — U-Net
Time: ~45 minutes

Objective

Learning objectives

Distinguish top-down and bottom-up pose estimation and state when each is used
Regress heatmaps for K keypoints with a Gaussian-per-keypoint target and extract keypoint coordinates at inference
Explain Part Affinity Fields (PAFs) and how bottom-up pipelines associate keypoints into instances
Use MediaPipe Pose or MMPose for production keypoint estimation and understand their output format

Unlock the full lesson

You've read the first 2 sections. The rest of this lesson covers The Problem, The Concept, Build, Check Yourself, Key Terms & Next — plus a hands-on lab, quiz, and project artifact.

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Key terms in this lesson

Inference