Computer Vision Architecture Decision Tree

Picking a computer vision model shouldn’t be guesswork. This guide gives you a practical decision tree for selecting the right architecture across detection, segmentation, classification, and keypoint tasks based on accuracy, latency, and deployment constraints.

Gain insights into

01

From Use-Case to Model: A Practical Decision Tree

Learn how to move from your real-world application to the right vision architecture by following three simple steps:

β€’ Choose your task
β€’ Apply your constraints (accuracy, latency, edge, real-time)
β€’ Select from strong, modern default architectures

02

Architecture Recommendations Across Vision Tasks

Explore model recommendations mapped by task and deployment constraint, including:

  • Object Detection (RT-DETRv2, YOLO11, DINOv3 + DETR)
  • Segmentation (Mask2Former, EoMT, MobileNetV4 + U-Net)
  • Classification & Zero-Shot (SigLIP 2, PE-Core, MobileCLIP2)
  • Keypoint Detection (ViTPose, RTMPose, YOLO-Pose)
03

Choosing the Right Model: Production Readiness Checklist

A comprehensive checklist to verify that your selected model is production-ready, covering:

  • Accuracy, latency, and memory fit
  • Licensing and open-source compliance
  • Framework compatibility (PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX, etc.)
  • Export and deployment options (ONNX, TensorRT, Docker, cloud)
  • Maintenance status and documentation quality
04

Deep Dive: What Each Checklist Item Actually Means

Not all checklist items are equal - some are quick checks, others hide real complexity. This chapter walks through each property in detail, from spotting license gotchas between code and weights, to evaluating framework fit, deployment options like ONNX and TensorRT export, and the maintenance signals that separate actively supported models from abandoned ones.

‍

Explore Lightly Products

LightlyStudio

Data Curation &Β Labeling

Curate, label and manage your data
in one place

Learn More

LightlyTrain

Self-Supervised Pretraining

Leverage self-supervised learning to pretrain models

Learn More

LightlyServices

AI Training Data for LLMs & CV

Expert training data services for LLMs, AI Agents and vision

Learn More

You Are Invited: Join Lightly's Private ML Engineering Discord

Want in? Collaborate with 300+ ML engineers optimizing data for their AI models.

Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.