# 13.1. Image Augmentation¶ Open the notebook in Colab Open the notebook in Colab Open the notebook in Colab

We mentioned that large-scale datasets are prerequisites for the successful application of deep neural networks in Section 7.1. Image augmentation technology expands the scale of training datasets by making a series of random changes to the training images to produce similar, but different, training examples. Another way to explain image augmentation is that randomly changing training examples can reduce a model’s dependence on certain properties, thereby improving its capability for generalization. For example, we can crop the images in different ways, so that the objects of interest appear in different positions, reducing the model’s dependence on the position where objects appear. We can also adjust the brightness, color, and other factors to reduce model’s sensitivity to color. It can be said that image augmentation technology contributed greatly to the success of AlexNet. In this section, we will discuss this technology, which is widely used in computer vision.

First, import the packages or modules required for the experiment in this section.

%matplotlib inline
from d2l import mxnet as d2l
from mxnet import autograd, gluon, image, init, np, npx
from mxnet.gluon import nn

npx.set_np()


## 13.1.1. Common Image Augmentation Method¶

In this experiment, we will use an image with a shape of $$400\times 500$$ as an example.

d2l.set_figsize()
d2l.plt.imshow(img.asnumpy());


Most image augmentation methods have a certain degree of randomness. To make it easier for us to observe the effect of image augmentation, we next define the auxiliary function apply. This function runs the image augmentation method aug multiple times on the input image img and shows all results.

def apply(img, aug, num_rows=2, num_cols=4, scale=1.5):
Y = [aug(img) for _ in range(num_rows * num_cols)]
d2l.show_images(Y, num_rows, num_cols, scale=scale)


### 13.1.1.1. Flipping and Cropping¶

Flipping the image left and right usually does not change the category of the object. This is one of the earliest and most widely used methods of image augmentation. Next, we use the transforms module to create the RandomFlipLeftRight instance, which introduces a 50% chance that the image is flipped left and right.

apply(img, gluon.data.vision.transforms.RandomFlipLeftRight())


Flipping up and down is not as commonly used as flipping left and right. However, at least for this example image, flipping up and down does not hinder recognition. Next, we create a RandomFlipTopBottom instance for a 50% chance of flipping the image up and down.

apply(img, gluon.data.vision.transforms.RandomFlipTopBottom())


In the example image we used, the cat is in the middle of the image, but this may not be the case for all images. In Section 6.5, we explained that the pooling layer can reduce the sensitivity of the convolutional layer to the target location. In addition, we can make objects appear at different positions in the image in different proportions by randomly cropping the image. This can also reduce the sensitivity of the model to the target position.

In the following code, we randomly crop a region with an area of 10% to 100% of the original area, and the ratio of width to height of the region is randomly selected from between 0.5 and 2. Then, the width and height of the region are both scaled to 200 pixels. Unless otherwise stated, the random number between $$a$$ and $$b$$ in this section refers to a continuous value obtained by uniform sampling in the interval $$[a, b]$$.

shape_aug = gluon.data.vision.transforms.RandomResizedCrop(
(200, 200), scale=(0.1, 1), ratio=(0.5, 2))
apply(img, shape_aug)


### 13.1.1.2. Changing the Color¶

Another augmentation method is changing colors. We can change four aspects of the image color: brightness, contrast, saturation, and hue. In the example below, we randomly change the brightness of the image to a value between 50% ($$1-0.5$$) and 150% ($$1+0.5$$) of the original image.

apply(img, gluon.data.vision.transforms.RandomBrightness(0.5))


Similarly, we can randomly change the hue of the image.

apply(img, gluon.data.vision.transforms.RandomHue(0.5))


We can also create a RandomColorJitter instance and set how to randomly change the brightness, contrast, saturation, and hue of the image at the same time.

color_aug = gluon.data.vision.transforms.RandomColorJitter(
brightness=0.5, contrast=0.5, saturation=0.5, hue=0.5)
apply(img, color_aug)


### 13.1.1.3. Overlying Multiple Image Augmentation Methods¶

In practice, we will overlay multiple image augmentation methods. We can overlay the different image augmentation methods defined above and apply them to each image by using a Compose instance.

augs = gluon.data.vision.transforms.Compose([
gluon.data.vision.transforms.RandomFlipLeftRight(), color_aug, shape_aug])
apply(img, augs)


## 13.1.2. Using an Image Augmentation Training Model¶

Next, we will look at how to apply image augmentation in actual training. Here, we use the CIFAR-10 dataset, instead of the Fashion-MNIST dataset we have been using. This is because the position and size of the objects in the Fashion-MNIST dataset have been normalized, and the differences in color and size of the objects in CIFAR-10 dataset are more significant. The first 32 training images in the CIFAR-10 dataset are shown below.

d2l.show_images(gluon.data.vision.CIFAR10(
train=True)[0:32][0], 4, 8, scale=0.8);


In order to obtain definitive results during prediction, we usually only apply image augmentation to the training example, and do not use image augmentation with random operations during prediction. Here, we only use the simplest random left-right flipping method. In addition, we use a ToTensor instance to convert minibatch images into the format required by MXNet, i.e., 32-bit floating point numbers with the shape of (batch size, number of channels, height, width) and value range between 0 and 1.

train_augs = gluon.data.vision.transforms.Compose([
gluon.data.vision.transforms.RandomFlipLeftRight(),
gluon.data.vision.transforms.ToTensor()])

test_augs = gluon.data.vision.transforms.Compose([
gluon.data.vision.transforms.ToTensor()])


Next, we define an auxiliary function to make it easier to read the image and apply image augmentation. The transform_first function provided by Gluon’s dataset applies image augmentation to the first element of each training example (image and label), i.e., the element at the top of the image. For detailed descriptions of DataLoader, refer to Section 3.5.

def load_cifar10(is_train, augs, batch_size):
gluon.data.vision.CIFAR10(train=is_train).transform_first(augs),
batch_size=batch_size, shuffle=is_train,


### 13.1.2.1. Using a Multi-GPU Training Model¶

We train the ResNet-18 model described in Section 7.6 on the CIFAR-10 dataset. We will also apply the methods described in Section 12.6 and use a multi-GPU training model.

Next, we define the training function to train and evaluate the model using multiple GPUs.

#@save
def train_batch_ch13(net, features, labels, loss, trainer, ctx_list,
split_f=d2l.split_batch):
X_shards, y_shards = split_f(features, labels, ctx_list)
pred_shards = [net(X_shard) for X_shard in X_shards]
ls = [loss(pred_shard, y_shard) for pred_shard, y_shard
in zip(pred_shards, y_shards)]
for l in ls:
l.backward()
# The True flag allows parameters with stale gradients, which is useful
# later (e.g., in fine-tuning BERT)
train_loss_sum = sum([float(l.sum()) for l in ls])
train_acc_sum = sum(d2l.accuracy(pred_shard, y_shard)
for pred_shard, y_shard in zip(pred_shards, y_shards))
return train_loss_sum, train_acc_sum

#@save
def train_ch13(net, train_iter, test_iter, loss, trainer, num_epochs,
ctx_list=d2l.try_all_gpus(), split_f=d2l.split_batch):
num_batches, timer = len(train_iter), d2l.Timer()
animator = d2l.Animator(xlabel='epoch', xlim=[0, num_epochs], ylim=[0, 1],
legend=['train loss', 'train acc', 'test acc'])
for epoch in range(num_epochs):
# Store training_loss, training_accuracy, num_examples, num_features
metric = d2l.Accumulator(4)
for i, (features, labels) in enumerate(train_iter):
timer.start()
l, acc = train_batch_ch13(
net, features, labels, loss, trainer, ctx_list, split_f)
timer.stop()
if (i + 1) % (num_batches // 5) == 0:
(metric[0] / metric[2], metric[1] / metric[3],
None))
test_acc = d2l.evaluate_accuracy_gpus(net, test_iter, split_f)
animator.add(epoch + 1, (None, None, test_acc))
print(f'loss {metric[0] / metric[2]:.3f}, train acc '
f'{metric[1] / metric[3]:.3f}, test acc {test_acc:.3f}')
print(f'{metric[2] * num_epochs / timer.sum():.1f} examples/sec on '
f'{str(ctx_list)}')


Now, we can define the train_with_data_aug function to use image augmentation to train the model. This function obtains all available GPUs and uses Adam as the optimization algorithm for training. It then applies image augmentation to the training dataset, and finally calls the train function just defined to train and evaluate the model.

batch_size, ctx, net = 256, d2l.try_all_gpus(), d2l.resnet18(10)
net.initialize(init=init.Xavier(), ctx=ctx)

def train_with_data_aug(train_augs, test_augs, net, lr=0.001):
loss = gluon.loss.SoftmaxCrossEntropyLoss()
{'learning_rate': lr})
train_ch13(net, train_iter, test_iter, loss, trainer, 10, ctx)


Now we train the model using image augmentation of random flipping left and right.

train_with_data_aug(train_augs, test_augs, net)

loss 0.169, train acc 0.941, test acc 0.837
4716.7 examples/sec on [gpu(0), gpu(1)]


## 13.1.3. Summary¶

• Image augmentation generates random images based on existing training data to cope with overfitting.

• In order to obtain definitive results during prediction, we usually only apply image augmentation to the training example, and do not use image augmentation with random operations during prediction.

• We can obtain classes related to image augmentation from Gluon’s transforms module.

## 13.1.4. Exercises¶

1. Train the model without using image augmentation: train_with_data_aug(no_aug, no_aug). Compare training and testing accuracy when using and not using image augmentation. Can this comparative experiment support the argument that image augmentation can mitigate overfitting? Why?

2. Add different image augmentation methods in model training based on the CIFAR-10 dataset. Observe the implementation results.

3. With reference to the MXNet documentation, what other image augmentation methods are provided in Gluon’s transforms module?

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