General Image Recognition Pipeline Usage Tutorial¶
1. Introduction to the General Image Recognition Pipeline¶
The General Image Recognition Pipeline aims to solve the problem of open-domain object localization and recognition. Currently, PaddleX's General Image Recognition Pipeline supports PP-ShiTuV2.
PP-ShiTuV2 is a practical general image recognition system mainly composed of three modules: mainbody detection module, image feature module, and vector retrieval module. The system integrates and improves various strategies in multiple aspects, including backbone network, loss function, data augmentation, learning rate scheduling, regularization, pre-trained model, and model pruning and quantization. It optimizes each module and ultimately achieves better performance in multiple application scenarios.
The General Image Recognition Pipeline includes the mainbody detection module and the image feature module, with several models to choose. You can select the model to use based on the benchmark data below. If you prioritize model precision, choose a model with higher precision. If you prioritize inference speed, choose a model with faster inference. If you prioritize model storage size, choose a model with a smaller storage size.
Mainbody Detection Module:
Model | mAP(0.5:0.95) | mAP(0.5) | GPU Inference Time (ms) [Normal Mode / High-Performance Mode] |
CPU Inference Time (ms) [Normal Mode / High-Performance Mode] |
Model Size (M) | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
PP-ShiTuV2_det | 41.5 | 62.0 | 12.79 / 4.51 | 44.14 / 44.14 | 27.54 | An mainbody detection model based on PicoDet_LCNet_x2_5, which may detect multiple common objects simultaneously. |
Image Feature Module:
Model | Recall@1 (%) | GPU Inference Time (ms) [Normal Mode / High-Performance Mode] |
CPU Inference Time (ms) [Normal Mode / High-Performance Mode] |
Model Size (M) | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
PP-ShiTuV2_rec | 84.2 | 3.48 / 0.55 | 8.04 / 4.04 | 16.3 M | PP-ShiTuV2 is a general image feature system consisting of three modules: mainbody detection, feature extraction, and vector retrieval. These models are part of the feature extraction module, and different models can be selected based on system requirements. |
PP-ShiTuV2_rec_CLIP_vit_base | 88.69 | 12.94 / 2.88 | 58.36 / 58.36 | 306.6 M | |
PP-ShiTuV2_rec_CLIP_vit_large | 91.03 | 51.65 / 11.18 | 255.78 / 255.78 | 1.05 G |
Test Environment Description:
- Performance Test Environment
- Test Dataset:
- Subject Detection Model: PaddleClas Subject Detection Dataset.
- Image Feature Model: AliProducts Dataset.
-
Hardware Configuration:
- GPU: NVIDIA Tesla T4
- CPU: Intel Xeon Gold 6271C @ 2.60GHz
- Other Environments: Ubuntu 20.04 / cuDNN 8.6 / TensorRT 8.5.2.2
-
Inference Mode Description
Mode | GPU Configuration | CPU Configuration | Acceleration Technology Combination |
---|---|---|---|
Normal Mode | FP32 Precision / No TRT Acceleration | FP32 Precision / 8 Threads | PaddleInference |
High-Performance Mode | Optimal combination of pre-selected precision types and acceleration strategies | FP32 Precision / 8 Threads | Pre-selected optimal backend (Paddle/OpenVINO/TRT, etc.) |
2. Quick Start¶
The pre-trained model pipelines provided by PaddleX can be quickly experienced. You can use Python to experience locally.
2.1 Online Experience¶
Not supported yet.
2.2 Local Experience¶
❗ Before using the general image recognition pipeline locally, please ensure that you have completed the installation of the PaddleX wheel package according to the PaddleX Installation Guide.
2.2.1 Command Line Experience¶
The pipeline currently does not support command line experience.
2.2.2 Python Script Integration¶
- To run the pipeline, you need to build an index library in advance. You can download the official beverage recognition test dataset drink_dataset_v2.0 to build the index library. If you wish to use your private dataset, please refer to Section 2.3 Data Organization for Building the Index Library. After that, you can quickly build the index library and perform fast inference with the general image recognition pipeline using just a few lines of code.
from paddlex import create_pipeline
pipeline = create_pipeline(pipeline="PP-ShiTuV2")
index_data = pipeline.build_index(gallery_imgs="drink_dataset_v2.0/", gallery_label="drink_dataset_v2.0/gallery.txt")
index_data.save("drink_index")
output = pipeline.predict("./drink_dataset_v2.0/test_images/001.jpeg", index=index_data)
for res in output:
res.print()
res.save_to_img("./output/")
res.save_to_json("./output/")
In the above Python script, the following steps are executed:
(1) Call the create_pipeline
to instantiate the general image recognition pipeline object. The specific parameter descriptions are as follows:
Parameter | Description | Type | Default Value |
---|---|---|---|
pipeline |
The name of the pipeline or the path to the pipeline configuration file. If it is a pipeline name, it must be a pipeline supported by PaddleX. | str |
None |
config |
Specific configuration information for the pipeline (if set simultaneously with the pipeline , it takes precedence over the pipeline , and the pipeline name must match the pipeline ).
|
dict[str, Any] |
None |
device |
The inference device for the pipeline. Supports specifying specific GPU card numbers, such as "gpu:0", specific card numbers for other hardware, such as "npu:0", or CPU, such as "cpu". | str |
gpu:0 |
use_hpip |
Whether to enable high-performance inference. This is only available if the pipeline supports high-performance inference. | bool |
False |
(2) Call the build_index
method of the general image recognition pipeline object to build the index library. The specific parameter descriptions are as follows:
Parameter | Description | Type | Options | Default Value |
---|---|---|---|---|
gallery_imgs |
The gallery images to be added. This is a required parameter. | str |list |
|
None |
gallery_label |
The annotation information of the gallery images. This is a required parameter. | str|list |
|
None |
metric_type |
The feature measurement method. This is an optional parameter. | str |
|
"IP" |
index_type |
The type of index. This is an optional parameter. | str |
|
"HNSW32" |
The index library object index
supports the save
method, which is used to save the index library to disk:
Parameter | Description | Type | Default Value |
---|---|---|---|
save_path |
The directory where the index library file is saved, such as drink_index . |
str |
None |
(3) Call the predict
method of the general image recognition pipeline object for inference prediction: The predict
method takes input
as a parameter, which is used to input the data to be predicted and supports multiple input methods. Specific examples are as follows:
Parameter | Description | Type | Options | Default Value |
---|---|---|---|---|
input |
Data to be predicted, supports multiple input types, required parameter | Python Var|str|list |
|
None |
index |
The feature library used for pipeline inference prediction, optional parameter. If this parameter is not provided, the index library specified in the pipeline configuration file will be used by default. | str|paddlex.inference.components.retrieval.faiss.IndexData|None |
|
None |
(4) Process the prediction results: The prediction result of each sample is of dict
type, and it supports printing or saving as a file. The supported file types depend on the specific pipeline, such as:
Method | Description | Parameter | Type | Description | Default |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
print() |
Print the result to the terminal | format_json |
bool |
Whether to format the output content using JSON indentation |
True |
indent |
int |
Specify the indentation level to beautify the output JSON data, making it more readable. Effective only when format_json is True |
4 | ||
ensure_ascii |
bool |
Control whether to escape non-ASCII characters to Unicode . When set to True , all non-ASCII characters will be escaped; False will retain the original characters. Effective only when format_json is True |
False |
||
save_to_json() |
Save the result as a JSON file | save_path |
str |
Path to save the file. If it is a directory, the saved file name will be consistent with the input file type | None |
indent |
int |
Specify the indentation level to beautify the output JSON data, making it more readable. Effective only when format_json is True |
4 | ||
ensure_ascii |
bool |
Control whether to escape non-ASCII characters to Unicode . When set to True , all non-ASCII characters will be escaped; False will retain the original characters. Effective only when format_json is True |
False |
||
save_to_img() |
Save the result as an image file | save_path |
str |
Path to save the file, supports directory or file path | None |
- Calling the
print()
method will print the following result to the terminal:
{'res': {'input_path': './drink_dataset_v2.0/test_images/001.jpeg', 'boxes': [{'labels': ['红牛-强化型', '红牛-强化型', '红牛-强化型', '红牛-强化型', '红牛-强化型'], 'rec_scores': [0.720183789730072, 0.7044230699539185, 0.6812724471092224, 0.6583285927772522, 0.6578206419944763], 'det_score': 0.6135568618774414, 'coordinate': [343.8184, 98.96374, 528.0366, 593.3813]}]}}
-
The meanings of the output parameters are as follows:
input_path
: Indicates the path of the input imageboxes
: Information of detected objects, a list of dictionaries, each dictionary contains the following information:labels
: List of recognized labels, sorted by score from high to lowrec_scores
: List of recognition scores, where elements correspond tolabels
one by onedet_score
: Detection scorecoordinate
: Coordinates of the target box, in the format [xmin, ymin, xmax, ymax]
-
Calling the
save_to_json()
method will save the above content to the specifiedsave_path
. If a directory is specified, the saved path will besave_path/{your_img_basename}.json
. If a file is specified, it will be saved directly to that file. - Calling the
save_to_img()
method will save the visualization result to the specifiedsave_path
. If a directory is specified, the saved path will besave_path/{your_img_basename}_res.{your_img_extension}
. If a file is specified, it will be saved directly to that file. (The pipeline usually contains many result images, it is not recommended to specify a specific file path directly, otherwise multiple images will be overwritten, leaving only the last one). In the above example, the visualization result is as follows:
- Additionally, it also supports obtaining the visualized image with results and prediction results through attributes, as follows:
Attribute | Description |
---|---|
json |
Get the prediction result in json format |
img |
Get the visualized image in dict format |
- The prediction result obtained by the
json
attribute is data of dict type, and the relevant content is consistent with the content saved by calling thesave_to_json()
method. - The prediction result returned by the
img
attribute is data of dict type. The key isres
, and the corresponding value is anImage.Image
object used to visualize the general image recognition result.
The above Python script integration method uses the parameter settings in the PaddleX official configuration file by default. If you need to customize the configuration file, you can first execute the following command to obtain the official configuration file and save it in my_path
:
If you have obtained the configuration file, you can customize the settings for the general image recognition pipeline. You just need to modify the pipeline
parameter value in the create_pipeline
method to the path of your custom pipeline configuration file.
For example, if your custom configuration file is saved in ./my_path/PP-ShiTuV2.yaml
, you just need to execute:
from paddlex import create_pipeline
pipeline = create_pipeline(pipeline="./my_path/PP-ShiTuV2.yaml")
output = pipeline.predict("./drink_dataset_v2.0/test_images/001.jpeg", index="drink_index")
for res in output:
res.print()
res.save_to_json("./output/")
res.save_to_img("./output/")
Note: The parameters in the configuration file are the initialization parameters of the pipeline. If you wish to change the initialization parameters of the general image recognition pipeline, you can directly modify the parameters in the configuration file and load the configuration file for prediction.
2.2.3 Adding and Deleting Operations in the Index Library¶
If you wish to add more images to the index library, you can call the append_index
method; to delete image features, you can call the remove_index
method.
from paddlex import create_pipeline
pipeline = create_pipeline("PP-ShiTuV2")
index_data = pipeline.build_index(gallery_imgs="drink_dataset_v2.0/", gallery_label="drink_dataset_v2.0/gallery.txt", index_type="IVF", metric_type="IP")
index_data = pipeline.append_index(gallery_imgs="drink_dataset_v2.0/", gallery_label="drink_dataset_v2.0/gallery.txt", index=index_data)
index_data = pipeline.remove_index(remove_ids="drink_dataset_v2.0/remove_ids.txt", index=index_data)
index_data.save("drink_index")
The parameters of the above method are described as follows:
Parameter | Description | Type | Options | Default Value |
---|---|---|---|---|
gallery_imgs |
Gallery images to be added, required parameter | str |list |
|
None |
gallery_label |
Labels for gallery images, required parameter | str |list |
|
None |
metric_type |
Feature measurement method, optional parameter | str |
|
"IP" |
index_type |
Type of index, optional parameter | str |
|
"HNSW32" |
remove_ids |
Indices to be removed | str |list |
|
None |
index |
Feature library used for pipeline inference | str|paddlex.inference.components.retrieval.faiss.IndexData |
|
None |
Note: HNSW32
has compatibility issues on the Windows platform, which may prevent the index library from being built or loaded.
2.3 Data Organization for Building the Index Library¶
The general image recognition pipeline example of PaddleX requires a pre-built index library for feature retrieval. If you wish to build an index library with your private data, you need to organize the data as follows:
data_root # The root directory of the dataset; the directory name can be changed
├── images # The directory for storing images; the directory name can be changed
│ │ ...
└── gallery.txt # The annotation file for the gallery dataset; the filename can be changed. Each line provides the path and label of an image to be retrieved, separated by a space. Example content: “0/0.jpg Pulse”
3. Development Integration/Deployment¶
If the general image recognition pipeline meets your requirements for inference speed and accuracy, you can proceed directly with development integration/deployment.
If you need to apply the general image recognition pipeline directly in your Python project, you can refer to the example code in 2.2.2 Python Script Integration.
Additionally, PaddleX provides three other deployment methods, detailed as follows:
🚀 High-Performance Inference: In actual production environments, many applications have stringent standards for the performance metrics of deployment strategies (especially response speed) to ensure efficient system operation and smooth user experience. To this end, PaddleX offers a high-performance inference plugin aimed at deeply optimizing the performance of model inference and pre/post-processing, significantly speeding up the end-to-end process. For detailed high-performance inference processes, please refer to PaddleX High-Performance Inference Guide.
☁️ Service Deployment: Service deployment is a common form of deployment in actual production environments. By encapsulating the inference function as a service, clients can access these services via network requests to obtain inference results. PaddleX supports multiple pipeline service deployment schemes. For detailed pipeline service deployment processes, please refer to PaddleX Service Deployment Guide.
Below is the API reference for basic service deployment and multi-language service call examples:
API Reference
For the main operations provided by the service:
- The HTTP request method is POST.
- Both the request body and response body are JSON data (JSON objects).
- When the request is processed successfully, the response status code is
200
, and the properties of the response body are as follows:
Name | Type | Meaning |
---|---|---|
logId |
string |
The UUID of the request. |
errorCode |
integer |
Error code. Fixed at 0 . |
errorMsg |
string |
Error description. Fixed at "Success" . |
result |
object |
Operation result. |
- When the request is not processed successfully, the properties of the response body are as follows:
Name | Type | Meaning |
---|---|---|
logId |
string |
The UUID of the request. |
errorCode |
integer |
Error code. Same as the response status code. |
errorMsg |
string |
Error description. |
The main operations provided by the service are as follows:
buildIndex
Build feature vector index.
POST /shitu-index-build
- The properties of the request body are as follows:
Name | Type | Meaning | Required |
---|---|---|---|
imageLabelPairs |
array |
Image-label pairs used to build the index. | Yes |
Each element in imageLabelPairs
is an object
with the following properties:
Name | Type | Meaning |
---|---|---|
image |
string |
The URL of the image file accessible by the server or the Base64 encoded result of the image file content. |
label |
string |
Label. |
- When the request is processed successfully, the
result
in the response body has the following properties:
Name | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
indexKey |
string |
The key corresponding to the index, used to identify the created index. It can be used as input for other operations. |
imageCount |
integer |
The number of images indexed. |
addImagesToIndex
Add images (corresponding feature vectors) to the index.
POST /shitu-index-add
- The properties of the request body are as follows:
Name | Type | Description | Required |
---|---|---|---|
imageLabelPairs |
array |
Image-label pairs used to build the index. | Yes |
indexKey |
string |
The key corresponding to the index. Provided by the buildIndex operation. |
Yes |
Each element in imageLabelPairs
is an object
with the following properties:
Name | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
image |
string |
The URL of an image file accessible by the server or the Base64-encoded content of the image file. |
label |
string |
The label. |
- When the request is processed successfully, the
result
in the response body has the following properties:
Name | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
imageCount |
integer |
The number of images indexed. |
removeImagesFromIndex
Remove images (corresponding feature vectors) from the index.
POST /shitu-index-remove
- The properties of the request body are as follows:
Name | Type | Description | Required |
---|---|---|---|
ids |
array |
The IDs of the vectors to be removed from the index. | Yes |
indexKey |
string |
The key corresponding to the index. Provided by the buildIndex operation. |
Yes |
- When the request is processed successfully, the
result
in the response body has the following properties:
Name | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
imageCount |
integer |
The number of images indexed. |
infer
Perform image recognition.
POST /shitu-infer
- The properties of the request body are as follows:
Name | Type | Description | Required |
---|---|---|---|
image |
string |
The URL of an image file accessible by the server or the Base64-encoded content of the image file. | Yes |
indexKey |
string |
The key corresponding to the index. Provided by the buildIndex operation. |
No |
detThreshold |
number | null |
Refer to the det_threshold parameter description in the pipeline predict method. |
No |
recThreshold |
number | null |
Refer to the rec_threshold parameter description in the pipeline predict method. |
No |
hammingRadius |
number | null |
Refer to the hamming_radius parameter description in the pipeline predict method. |
No |
topk |
integer | null |
Refer to the topk parameter description in the pipeline predict method. |
No |
- When the request is processed successfully, the
result
in the response body has the following properties:
Name | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
detectedObjects |
array |
Information about detected objects. |
image |
string | | The recognition result image. The image is in JPEG format and is Base64-encoded. |
Each element in detectedObjects
is an object
with the following properties:
Name | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
bbox |
array |
The location of the object. The elements of the array are the x-coordinate of the top-left corner, the y-coordinate of the top-left corner, the x-coordinate of the bottom-right corner, and the y-coordinate of the bottom-right corner. |
recResults |
array |
Recognition results. |
score |
number |
The detection score. |
Each element in recResults
is an object
with the following properties:
Name | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
label |
string |
The label. |
score |
number |
The recognition score. |
Multi-language Service Call Example
Python
import base64
import pprint
import sys
import requests
API_BASE_URL = "http://0.0.0.0:8080"
base_image_label_pairs = [
{"image": "./demo0.jpg", "label": "Rabbit"},
{"image": "./demo1.jpg", "label": "Rabbit"},
{"image": "./demo2.jpg", "label": "Dog"},
]
image_label_pairs_to_add = [
{"image": "./demo3.jpg", "label": "Dog"},
]
ids_to_remove = [1]
infer_image_path = "./demo4.jpg"
output_image_path = "./out.jpg"
for pair in base_image_label_pairs:
with open(pair["image"], "rb") as file:
image_bytes = file.read()
image_data = base64.b64encode(image_bytes).decode("ascii")
pair["image"] = image_data
payload = {"imageLabelPairs": base_image_label_pairs}
resp_index_build = requests.post(f"{API_BASE_URL}/shitu-index-build", json=payload)
if resp_index_build.status_code != 200:
print(f"Request to shitu-index-build failed with status code {resp_index_build}.")
pprint.pp(resp_index_build.json())
sys.exit(1)
result_index_build = resp_index_build.json()["result"
print(f"Number of images indexed: {result_index_build['imageCount']}")
for pair in image_label_pairs_to_add:
with open(pair["image"], "rb") as file:
image_bytes = file.read()
image_data = base64.b64encode(image_bytes).decode("ascii")
pair["image"] = image_data
payload = {"imageLabelPairs": image_label_pairs_to_add, "indexKey": result_index_build["indexKey"]}
resp_index_add = requests.post(f"{API_BASE_URL}/shitu-index-add", json=payload)
if resp_index_add.status_code != 200:
print(f"Request to shitu-index-add failed with status code {resp_index_add}.")
pprint.pp(resp_index_add.json())
sys.exit(1)
result_index_add = resp_index_add.json()["result"]
print(f"Number of images indexed: {result_index_add['imageCount']}")
payload = {"ids": ids_to_remove, "indexKey": result_index_build["indexKey"]}
resp_index_remove = requests.post(f"{API_BASE_URL}/shitu-index-remove", json=payload)
if resp_index_remove.status_code != 200:
print(f"Request to shitu-index-remove failed with status code {resp_index_remove}.")
pprint.pp(resp_index_remove.json())
sys.exit(1)
result_index_remove = resp_index_remove.json()["result"]
print(f"Number of images indexed: {result_index_remove['imageCount']}")
with open(infer_image_path, "rb") as file:
image_bytes = file.read()
image_data = base64.b64encode(image_bytes).decode("ascii")
payload = {"image": image_data, "indexKey": result_index_build["indexKey"]}
resp_infer = requests.post(f"{API_BASE_URL}/shitu-infer", json=payload)
if resp_infer.status_code != 200:
print(f"Request to shitu-infer failed with status code {resp_infer}.")
pprint.pp(resp_infer.json())
sys.exit(1)
result_infer = resp_infer.json()["result"]
with open(output_image_path, "wb") as file:
file.write(base64.b64decode(result_infer["image"]))
print(f"Output image saved at {output_image_path}")
print("\nDetected objects:")
pprint.pp(result_infer["detectedObjects"])
📱 Edge Deployment: Edge deployment is a method where computation and data processing functions are placed on the user's device itself, allowing the device to process data directly without relying on remote servers. PaddleX supports deploying models on edge devices such as Android. For detailed edge deployment processes, please refer to the PaddleX Edge Deployment Guide. You can choose the appropriate method to deploy the model pipeline based on your needs for subsequent AI application integration.
4. Secondary Development¶
If the default model weights provided by the general image recognition pipeline do not meet your accuracy or speed requirements in your scenario, you can try further fine-tuning the existing model using your own specific domain or application scenario data to improve the recognition performance of the pipeline in your scenario.
4.1 Model Fine-Tuning¶
Since the general image recognition pipeline includes two modules (main body detection module and image feature module), the suboptimal performance of the model pipeline may come from either module.
You can analyze the images with poor recognition results. If you find that many main body targets are not detected during the analysis, it may be due to the inadequacy of the main body detection model. You need to refer to the Main Body Detection Module Development Tutorial in the Secondary Development section to fine-tune the main body detection model using your private dataset. If there are matching errors in the detected main bodies, it indicates that the image feature model needs further improvement. You need to refer to the Image Feature Module Development Tutorial in the Secondary Development section to fine-tune the image feature model.
4.2 Model Application¶
After completing the fine-tuning training with your private dataset, you will obtain a local model weight file.
If you need to use the fine-tuned model weights, simply modify the pipeline configuration file by replacing the local path of the fine-tuned model weights in the corresponding position in the configuration file:
...
SubModules:
Detection:
module_name: text_detection
model_name: PP-ShiTuV2_det
model_dir: null # Can be modified to the local path of the fine-tuned mainbody detection model
batch_size: 1
Recognition:
module_name: text_recognition
model_name: PP-ShiTuV2_rec
model_dir: null # Can be modified to the local path of the fine-tuned image feature model
batch_size: 1
Subsequently, refer to the command line method or Python script method in 2.2 Local Experience to load the modified pipeline configuration file.
5. Multi-Hardware Support¶
PaddleX supports various mainstream hardware devices such as NVIDIA GPU, Kunlunxin XPU, Ascend NPU, and Cambricon MLU. You only need to modify the --device
parameter to achieve seamless switching between different hardware.
For example, when running the general image recognition pipeline using Python, to change the running device from NVIDIA GPU to Ascend NPU, you only need to modify the device
in the script to npu:
from paddlex import create_pipeline
pipeline = create_pipeline(
pipeline="PP-ShiTuV2",
device="npu:0" # gpu:0 --> npu:0
)
If you want to use the general image recognition pipeline on more types of hardware, please refer to the PaddleX Multi-Hardware Usage Guide.