autoconvo

A package to automatically set up simple convolutional neural networks in pytorch.

convo.make_convolutions()

This is the only function exported by this one-module package, intended to make designing 'quick and dirty' convolutional sub-networks easy and quick!

Give it the shapes and activations you want, it'll give you a network taking your in_shape to your out_shape in n_layers steps.

The solver is currently a little shaky, and may fail or be slow for larger input sizes and numbers of layers.

Signature:

autoconvo.convo.make_convolutions(
		    in_shape, out_shape, n_layers, kernel_size=None, stride=None,
            	    padding_mode="zeros", dilation=1, bias=True, 
            	    activation=nn.ReLU, pool_type="max", norm_type=None, 
		    module_list=False, cache=True
		    ) -> torch.nn.Sequential or torch.nn.ModuleList

Args:

• in_shape: A tuple of ints specifying the shape of the input to the convolutional system. (C, X, [Y], [Z])

• out_shape: A tuple with the same shape as in_shape, specifying the desired output shape.

• n_layers: int, the number of convolutional layers in the system.

• kernel_size: None, int, tuple of int (one int per layer) or tuple of tuples of int (shape [n_layers, n_spatial_dims], one int per dimension per layer). The kernel size for each convolutional filter. See PyTorch docs for more detail. None means the solver will find an appropriate value itself.

• stride: None, int, tuple of int (one int per layer) or tuple of tuples of int (shape [n_layers, n_spatial_dims], one int per dimension per layer). The stride of each convolutional filter. See PyTorch docs for more detail. None means the solver will find an appropriate value itself.

• padding_mode: one of 'zeros', 'reflect', 'replicate' or 'circular'. Default: 'zeros'. The type of padding used where neccessary. See PyTorch docs for more detail.

• dilation: None, int, tuple of int (one int per layer) or tuple of tuples of int (shape [n_layers, n_spatial_dims], one int per dimension per layer). The dilation for each convolutional filter. See PyTorch docs for more detail. None means the solver will find an appropriate value itself.

• bias: Bool or array of Bool. Whether the convolutional layers will use a bias tensor or not.

• activation: None or class inheriting torch.nn.Module. One instance of this type will be added after each convolutional layer. n.b. this needs to be a class object, NOT an instance that class (activation=nn.ReLU and not activation=nn.ReLU()).

• pool_type: 'max' or 'avg'. Default 'max'. Indicates whether MaxPool or AvgPool layers will be used.

• norm_type: None or 'batch'. Default None. Indicates whether BatchNorm layers will be added after each pooling layer. In the future other norm types will be implemented.

• module_list: Bool. Whether the returned object will be an instance of torch.nn.Sequential or torch.nn.ModuleList.

• cache: Bool. Whether or not to use the caching system to check whether a solution has already been generated for the given parameters.

Returns:

A system of (n_layers of) convolutional, activation, pooling and (optionally) norm layers taking an input of shape (batch_size, *in_shape) and returning a result of shape (batch_size, *out_shape). These layers are contained in a torch.nn.Sequential object or a torch.nn.ModuleList if specified by the module_list argument.

Using autoconvo

Currently, autoconvo is in the testing phase but has been released in alpha on PyPI. You will find bugs so please make PRs or post issues here so I can get them squashed.

Also check out my other baby, QutiePy - a python quantum computing library.

Installing autoconvo

The package can be installed with pip:

pip install autoconvo

and imported with:

from autoconvo.convo import make_convolutions

or similar.

Example

Below is an example of how to use make_convolutions to automate convolution parameter calculations and keep network definitions tidy. Remember, if you want to check the parameters make_convolutions has suggested, just print the resulting nn.Sequential or nn.ModuleList for a nice representation of the subnetwork in the console.

import torch.nn as nn
from torch import flatten
from autoconvo import convo

class MyCNN(nn.Module):
	def __init__(self):
		super(MyCNN, self).__init__()
		self.conv_subnet = convo.make_convolutions([3, 256, 256], [100, 1, 1], 3)
		## Uncomment the following to inspect the subnet params:
		# print(self.conv_subnet)
		self.flatten = nn.Flatten()
		self.full_conn = nn.Linear(100, 1)
		self.activation = nn.Sigmoid()
	
	def forward(self, batch):
		# batch has shape [BATCH_SIZE, 3, 256, 256]
		flat = self.flattten(self.conv_subnet(batch))
		output = self.activation(self.full_conn(flat))

Tips and Tricks

• The argument activation can be any nn.Module subtype and therefore can be an nn.Sequential of several layers, so long as these layers do not change the shape of the tensor passed to forward as this will mess up the shape solver (in its current state at least :) ).

TODO:

• Make proper docs.
• Test, test, test...
• Automate testing.
• Add more norm layer types.