Introduction to Conditional random fields

Question

I came across the application of a conditional random field (CRF) to the output from a convolutional neural network (CNN) for image segmentation. The additional CRF step seems to be a common technique for image segmentation and as a post-processing step in CNNs for segmentation.

I began looking into how they work which lead me to a course on probabilistic graphical models by Daphne Koller on Coursera.

I found this course to be useful, but very general.

My question is: what is a good text or course to study the construction and training of CRFs, preferably one that starts with a gentle introduction assuming no prior background?

Answer 1

andrew maccallum has an excellent article on CRFs - https://people.cs.umass.edu/~mccallum/papers/crf-tutorial.pdf

There has to be a few assumptions on prior background like probability and general math.