Convolutional Autoencoder

Sticking with the MNIST dataset, let's improve our autoencoder's performance using convolutional layers. Again, loading modules and the data.


In [1]:
%matplotlib inline

import numpy as np
import tensorflow as tf
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

In [2]:
from tensorflow.examples.tutorials.mnist import input_data
mnist = input_data.read_data_sets('MNIST_data', validation_size=0)


Extracting MNIST_data\train-images-idx3-ubyte.gz
Extracting MNIST_data\train-labels-idx1-ubyte.gz
Extracting MNIST_data\t10k-images-idx3-ubyte.gz
Extracting MNIST_data\t10k-labels-idx1-ubyte.gz

In [3]:
img = mnist.train.images[2]
plt.imshow(img.reshape((28, 28)), cmap='Greys_r')


Out[3]:
<matplotlib.image.AxesImage at 0x21462f13c18>

Network Architecture

The encoder part of the network will be a typical convolutional pyramid. Each convolutional layer will be followed by a max-pooling layer to reduce the dimensions of the layers. The decoder though might be something new to you. The decoder needs to convert from a narrow representation to a wide reconstructed image. For example, the representation could be a 4x4x8 max-pool layer. This is the output of the encoder, but also the input to the decoder. We want to get a 28x28x1 image out from the decoder so we need to work our way back up from the narrow decoder input layer. A schematic of the network is shown below.

Here our final encoder layer has size 4x4x8 = 128. The original images have size 28x28 = 784, so the encoded vector is roughly 16% the size of the original image. These are just suggested sizes for each of the layers. Feel free to change the depths and sizes, but remember our goal here is to find a small representation of the input data.

What's going on with the decoder

Okay, so the decoder has these "Upsample" layers that you might not have seen before. First off, I'll discuss a bit what these layers aren't. Usually, you'll see deconvolutional layers used to increase the width and height of the layers. They work almost exactly the same as convolutional layers, but it reverse. A stride in the input layer results in a larger stride in the deconvolutional layer. For example, if you have a 3x3 kernel, a 3x3 patch in the input layer will be reduced to one unit in a convolutional layer. Comparatively, one unit in the input layer will be expanded to a 3x3 path in a deconvolutional layer. Deconvolution is often called "transpose convolution" which is what you'll find with the TensorFlow API, with tf.nn.conv2d_transpose.

However, deconvolutional layers can lead to artifacts in the final images, such as checkerboard patterns. This is due to overlap in the kernels which can be avoided by setting the stride and kernel size equal. In this Distill article from Augustus Odena, et al, the authors show that these checkerboard artifacts can be avoided by resizing the layers using nearest neighbor or bilinear interpolation (upsampling) followed by a convolutional layer. In TensorFlow, this is easily done with tf.image.resize_images, followed by a convolution. Be sure to read the Distill article to get a better understanding of deconvolutional layers and why we're using upsampling.

Exercise: Build the network shown above. Remember that a convolutional layer with strides of 1 and 'same' padding won't reduce the height and width. That is, if the input is 28x28 and the convolution layer has stride = 1 and 'same' padding, the convolutional layer will also be 28x28. The max-pool layers are used the reduce the width and height. A stride of 2 will reduce the size by 2. Odena et al claim that nearest neighbor interpolation works best for the upsampling, so make sure to include that as a parameter in tf.image.resize_images or use tf.image.resize_nearest_neighbor.


In [4]:
learning_rate = 0.001
inputs_ = tf.placeholder(tf.float32, shape = (None, 28, 28, 1), name = 'inputs')
targets_ = tf.placeholder(tf.float32, shape = (None, 28, 28, 1), name = 'targets')

### Encoder
conv1 = tf.layers.conv2d(inputs_, 16, (3, 3), padding = 'same', activation = tf.nn.relu)
# Now 28x28x16
maxpool1 = tf.layers.max_pooling2d(conv1, (2, 2), (2, 2), padding = 'same')
# Now 14x14x16
conv2 = tf.layers.conv2d(maxpool1, 8, (3, 3), padding = 'same', activation = tf.nn.relu)
# Now 14x14x8
maxpool2 = tf.layers.max_pooling2d(conv2, (2, 2), (2, 2), padding = 'same')
# Now 7x7x8
conv3 = tf.layers.conv2d(maxpool1, 8, (3, 3), padding = 'same', activation = tf.nn.relu)
# Now 7x7x8
encoded = tf.layers.max_pooling2d(conv3, (2, 2), (2, 2), padding = 'same')
# Now 4x4x8

### Decoder
upsample1 = tf.image.resize_nearest_neighbor(encoded, (7, 7))
# Now 7x7x8
conv4 = tf.layers.conv2d(upsample1, 8, (3, 3), padding = 'same', activation = tf.nn.relu)
# Now 7x7x8
upsample2 = tf.image.resize_nearest_neighbor(conv4, (14, 14))
# Now 14x14x8
conv5 = tf.layers.conv2d(upsample2, 8, (3, 3), padding = 'same', activation = tf.nn.relu)
# Now 14x14x8
upsample3 = tf.image.resize_nearest_neighbor(conv5, (28, 28))
# Now 28x28x8
conv6 = tf.layers.conv2d(upsample3, 16, (3, 3), padding = 'same', activation = tf.nn.relu)
# Now 28x28x16

logits = tf.layers.conv2d(conv6, 1, (3, 3), padding = 'same', activation = None)
#Now 28x28x1

# Pass logits through sigmoid to get reconstructed image
decoded = tf.nn.sigmoid(logits, name = 'decoded')

# Pass logits through sigmoid and calculate the cross-entropy loss
loss = tf.nn.sigmoid_cross_entropy_with_logits(labels = targets_, logits = logits)

# Get cost and define the optimizer
cost = tf.reduce_mean(loss)
opt = tf.train.AdamOptimizer(learning_rate).minimize(cost)

Training

As before, here wi'll train the network. Instead of flattening the images though, we can pass them in as 28x28x1 arrays.


In [5]:
sess = tf.Session()

In [9]:
epochs = 20
batch_size = 200
sess.run(tf.global_variables_initializer())
for e in range(epochs):
    for ii in range(mnist.train.num_examples//batch_size):
        batch = mnist.train.next_batch(batch_size)
        imgs = batch[0].reshape((-1, 28, 28, 1))
        batch_cost, _ = sess.run([cost, opt], feed_dict={inputs_: imgs,
                                                         targets_: imgs})

        if ii % 100 == 0:
            print("Epoch: {}/{}...".format(e+1, epochs),
                  "Training loss: {:.4f}".format(batch_cost))


Epoch: 1/20... Training loss: 0.6963
Epoch: 1/20... Training loss: 0.1462
Epoch: 1/20... Training loss: 0.1049
Epoch: 2/20... Training loss: 0.0961
Epoch: 2/20... Training loss: 0.0897
Epoch: 2/20... Training loss: 0.0903
Epoch: 3/20... Training loss: 0.0841
Epoch: 3/20... Training loss: 0.0828
Epoch: 3/20... Training loss: 0.0836
Epoch: 4/20... Training loss: 0.0818
Epoch: 4/20... Training loss: 0.0804
Epoch: 4/20... Training loss: 0.0794
Epoch: 5/20... Training loss: 0.0768
Epoch: 5/20... Training loss: 0.0757
Epoch: 5/20... Training loss: 0.0781
Epoch: 6/20... Training loss: 0.0781
Epoch: 6/20... Training loss: 0.0810
Epoch: 6/20... Training loss: 0.0761
Epoch: 7/20... Training loss: 0.0749
Epoch: 7/20... Training loss: 0.0737
Epoch: 7/20... Training loss: 0.0763
Epoch: 8/20... Training loss: 0.0767
Epoch: 8/20... Training loss: 0.0767
Epoch: 8/20... Training loss: 0.0758
Epoch: 9/20... Training loss: 0.0730
Epoch: 9/20... Training loss: 0.0769
Epoch: 9/20... Training loss: 0.0732
Epoch: 10/20... Training loss: 0.0722
Epoch: 10/20... Training loss: 0.0732
Epoch: 10/20... Training loss: 0.0715
Epoch: 11/20... Training loss: 0.0726
Epoch: 11/20... Training loss: 0.0740
Epoch: 11/20... Training loss: 0.0738
Epoch: 12/20... Training loss: 0.0730
Epoch: 12/20... Training loss: 0.0703
Epoch: 12/20... Training loss: 0.0728
Epoch: 13/20... Training loss: 0.0733
Epoch: 13/20... Training loss: 0.0741
Epoch: 13/20... Training loss: 0.0726
Epoch: 14/20... Training loss: 0.0735
Epoch: 14/20... Training loss: 0.0718
Epoch: 14/20... Training loss: 0.0732
Epoch: 15/20... Training loss: 0.0736
Epoch: 15/20... Training loss: 0.0729
Epoch: 15/20... Training loss: 0.0729
Epoch: 16/20... Training loss: 0.0725
Epoch: 16/20... Training loss: 0.0734
Epoch: 16/20... Training loss: 0.0682
Epoch: 17/20... Training loss: 0.0736
Epoch: 17/20... Training loss: 0.0717
Epoch: 17/20... Training loss: 0.0696
Epoch: 18/20... Training loss: 0.0719
Epoch: 18/20... Training loss: 0.0718
Epoch: 18/20... Training loss: 0.0704
Epoch: 19/20... Training loss: 0.0711
Epoch: 19/20... Training loss: 0.0698
Epoch: 19/20... Training loss: 0.0706
Epoch: 20/20... Training loss: 0.0707
Epoch: 20/20... Training loss: 0.0725
Epoch: 20/20... Training loss: 0.0708

In [12]:
fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=10, sharex=True, sharey=True, figsize=(20,4))
in_imgs = mnist.test.images[:10]
reconstructed = sess.run(decoded, feed_dict={inputs_: in_imgs.reshape((10, 28, 28, 1))})

for images, row in zip([in_imgs, reconstructed], axes):
    for img, ax in zip(images, row):
        ax.imshow(img.reshape((28, 28)), cmap='Greys_r')
        ax.get_xaxis().set_visible(False)
        ax.get_yaxis().set_visible(False)


fig.tight_layout(pad=0.1)


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
RuntimeError                              Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-12-5445191aed9c> in <module>()
      1 fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=10, sharex=True, sharey=True, figsize=(20,4))
      2 in_imgs = mnist.test.images[:10]
----> 3 reconstructed = sess.run(decoded, feed_dict={inputs_: in_imgs.reshape((10, 28, 28, 1))})
      4 
      5 for images, row in zip([in_imgs, reconstructed], axes):

C:\Users\chusi\Anaconda3\envs\tensorflow\lib\site-packages\tensorflow\python\client\session.py in run(self, fetches, feed_dict, options, run_metadata)
    765     try:
    766       result = self._run(None, fetches, feed_dict, options_ptr,
--> 767                          run_metadata_ptr)
    768       if run_metadata:
    769         proto_data = tf_session.TF_GetBuffer(run_metadata_ptr)

C:\Users\chusi\Anaconda3\envs\tensorflow\lib\site-packages\tensorflow\python\client\session.py in _run(self, handle, fetches, feed_dict, options, run_metadata)
    901     # Check session.
    902     if self._closed:
--> 903       raise RuntimeError('Attempted to use a closed Session.')
    904     if self.graph.version == 0:
    905       raise RuntimeError('The Session graph is empty.  Add operations to the '

RuntimeError: Attempted to use a closed Session.

In [11]:
sess.close()

Denoising

As I've mentioned before, autoencoders like the ones you've built so far aren't too useful in practive. However, they can be used to denoise images quite successfully just by training the network on noisy images. We can create the noisy images ourselves by adding Gaussian noise to the training images, then clipping the values to be between 0 and 1. We'll use noisy images as input and the original, clean images as targets. Here's an example of the noisy images I generated and the denoised images.

Since this is a harder problem for the network, we'll want to use deeper convolutional layers here, more feature maps. I suggest something like 32-32-16 for the depths of the convolutional layers in the encoder, and the same depths going backward through the decoder. Otherwise the architecture is the same as before.

Exercise: Build the network for the denoising autoencoder. It's the same as before, but with deeper layers. I suggest 32-32-16 for the depths, but you can play with these numbers, or add more layers.


In [14]:
learning_rate = 0.001
inputs_ = tf.placeholder(tf.float32, (None, 28, 28, 1), name='inputs')
targets_ = tf.placeholder(tf.float32, (None, 28, 28, 1), name='targets')

### Encoder
conv1 = tf.layers.conv2d(inputs_, 32, (3, 3), padding = 'same', activation = tf.nn.relu)
# Now 28x28x32
maxpool1 = tf.layers.max_pooling2d(conv1, (2, 2), (2, 2), padding = 'same')
# Now 14x14x32
conv2 = tf.layers.conv2d(maxpool1, 32, (3, 3), padding = 'same', activation = tf.nn.relu)
# Now 14x14x32
maxpool2 = tf.layers.max_pooling2d(conv2, (2, 2), (2, 2), padding = 'same')
# Now 7x7x32
conv3 = tf.layers.conv2d(maxpool2, 16, (3, 3), padding = 'same', activation = tf.nn.relu)
# Now 7x7x16
encoded = tf.layers.max_pooling2d(conv3, (2, 2), (2, 2), padding = 'same')
# Now 4x4x16

### Decoder
upsample1 = tf.image.resize_nearest_neighbor(encoded, (7, 7))
# Now 7x7x16
conv4 = tf.layers.conv2d(upsample1, 16, (3, 3), padding = 'same', activation = tf.nn.relu)
# Now 7x7x16
upsample2 = tf.image.resize_nearest_neighbor(conv4, (14, 14))
# Now 14x14x16
conv5 = tf.layers.conv2d(upsample2, 32, (3, 3), padding = 'same', activation = tf.nn.relu)
# Now 14x14x32
upsample3 = tf.image.resize_nearest_neighbor(conv5, (28, 28))
# Now 28x28x32
conv6 = tf.layers.conv2d(upsample3, 32, (3, 3), padding = 'same', activation = tf.nn.relu)
# Now 28x28x32

logits = tf.layers.conv2d(conv6, 1, (3, 3), padding = 'same', activation = None)
#Now 28x28x1

# Pass logits through sigmoid to get reconstructed image
decoded = tf.nn.sigmoid(logits, name = 'decoded')

# Pass logits through sigmoid and calculate the cross-entropy loss
loss = tf.nn.sigmoid_cross_entropy_with_logits(labels = targets_, logits = logits)

# Get cost and define the optimizer
cost = tf.reduce_mean(loss)
opt = tf.train.AdamOptimizer(learning_rate).minimize(cost)

In [15]:
sess = tf.Session()

In [18]:
epochs = 10
batch_size = 200
# Set's how much noise we're adding to the MNIST images
noise_factor = 0.5
sess.run(tf.global_variables_initializer())
for e in range(epochs):
    for ii in range(mnist.train.num_examples//batch_size):
        batch = mnist.train.next_batch(batch_size)
        # Get images from the batch
        imgs = batch[0].reshape((-1, 28, 28, 1))
        
        # Add random noise to the input images
        noisy_imgs = imgs + noise_factor * np.random.randn(*imgs.shape)
        # Clip the images to be between 0 and 1
        noisy_imgs = np.clip(noisy_imgs, 0., 1.)
        
        # Noisy images as inputs, original images as targets
        batch_cost, _ = sess.run([cost, opt], feed_dict={inputs_: noisy_imgs,
                                                         targets_: imgs})

        if ii % 100 == 0:
            print("Epoch: {}/{}...".format(e+1, epochs),
                  "Training loss: {:.4f}".format(batch_cost))


Epoch: 1/10... Training loss: 0.7020
Epoch: 1/10... Training loss: 0.2077
Epoch: 1/10... Training loss: 0.1816
Epoch: 2/10... Training loss: 0.1667
Epoch: 2/10... Training loss: 0.1518
Epoch: 2/10... Training loss: 0.1492
Epoch: 3/10... Training loss: 0.1452
Epoch: 3/10... Training loss: 0.1335
Epoch: 3/10... Training loss: 0.1361
Epoch: 4/10... Training loss: 0.1408
Epoch: 4/10... Training loss: 0.1314
Epoch: 4/10... Training loss: 0.1270
Epoch: 5/10... Training loss: 0.1261
Epoch: 5/10... Training loss: 0.1244
Epoch: 5/10... Training loss: 0.1219
Epoch: 6/10... Training loss: 0.1278
Epoch: 6/10... Training loss: 0.1190
Epoch: 6/10... Training loss: 0.1209
Epoch: 7/10... Training loss: 0.1216
Epoch: 7/10... Training loss: 0.1242
Epoch: 7/10... Training loss: 0.1226
Epoch: 8/10... Training loss: 0.1162
Epoch: 8/10... Training loss: 0.1182
Epoch: 8/10... Training loss: 0.1157
Epoch: 9/10... Training loss: 0.1150
Epoch: 9/10... Training loss: 0.1210
Epoch: 9/10... Training loss: 0.1156
Epoch: 10/10... Training loss: 0.1121
Epoch: 10/10... Training loss: 0.1164
Epoch: 10/10... Training loss: 0.1154

Checking out the performance

Here I'm adding noise to the test images and passing them through the autoencoder. It does a suprisingly great job of removing the noise, even though it's sometimes difficult to tell what the original number is.


In [19]:
fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=10, sharex=True, sharey=True, figsize=(20,4))
in_imgs = mnist.test.images[:10]
noisy_imgs = in_imgs + noise_factor * np.random.randn(*in_imgs.shape)
noisy_imgs = np.clip(noisy_imgs, 0., 1.)

reconstructed = sess.run(decoded, feed_dict={inputs_: noisy_imgs.reshape((10, 28, 28, 1))})

for images, row in zip([noisy_imgs, reconstructed], axes):
    for img, ax in zip(images, row):
        ax.imshow(img.reshape((28, 28)), cmap='Greys_r')
        ax.get_xaxis().set_visible(False)
        ax.get_yaxis().set_visible(False)

fig.tight_layout(pad=0.1)



In [ ]: