  We propose a neural network component, the regional aggregation layer, that
makes it possible to train a pixel-level density estimator using only
coarse-grained density aggregates, which reflect the number of objects in an
image region. Our approach is simple to use and does not require
domain-specific assumptions about the nature of the density function. We
evaluate our approach on several synthetic datasets. In addition, we use this
approach to learn to estimate high-resolution population and housing density
from satellite imagery. In all cases, we find that our approach results in
better density estimates than a commonly used baseline. We also show how our
housing density estimator can be used to classify buildings as residential or
non-residential.
