README.md

Trash Classification CNN Model

What is this?

This project is a convolutional neural network (CNN) model developed for the purpose of classifying different types of trash items. The dataset used for training this model is the RealWaste electronic dataset, which is available on The UCI Machine Learning Repository. The dataset is provided by the Wollongong City Council and is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

The CNN model in this project utilizes the TinyVGG architecture, a compact version of the popular VGG neural network architecture. The model is trained to classify trash items into the following subcategories:

• Cardboard
• Food Organics
• Glass
• Metal
• Miscellaneous Trash
• Paper
• Plastic
• Textile Trash
• Vegetation

In total, there are 9 categories into which the trash items are classified.

For more details about the CNN architecture used in this project, you can refer to the CNN Explainer website.

Info

Only 30% of the data from the Real Trash Dataset has been used and divided into an 80%-20% split of Train and Test.

The Repository contains 7 files:

1. data_setup.py: This file contains functions for setting up the data into datasets using ImageFolder and then turning it into batches using DataLoader. It also returns the names of the classes.

2. model_builder.py: This file contains a class which subclasses nn.Module and replicates the TinyVGG CNN model architecture with a few modifications here and there.

3. engine.py: This file contains three functions: train_step, test_step, and train. The previous two are used to train and test the model, respectively, and the last one integrates both to train the model.

4. plotting.py: This file contains functions to plot metrics like loss and accuracy using plot_metrics, and it also has a function plot_confusion_Matrix to plot the confusion matrix.

5. predict.py: This file can be run with --image and --model_path arguments to get the prediction of the model on the specified image path.

6. utils.py: This file contains functions to save the model in a specific folder with a changeable name.

7. train.py: This script uses all the files except predict.py and can take argument flags to change hyperparameters. It can be run with the following arguments:

   python train.py --train_dir TRAIN_DIR --test_dir TEST_DIR --learning_rate LEARNING_RATE --batch_size BATCH_SIZE --num_epochs NUM_EPOCHS
   

   Additionally, it is device agnostic, meaning it automatically utilizes available resources regardless of the specific device used.

Additionally, the repository contains 2 folders:

• data: This stores the data and has subdirectories train and test.

• models: This stores the model saved by utils.py.

• samples: This has 10 pictures, you can use for testing the model using predict.py.

What I Learned?

This project taught me the basics of Computer Vision with PyTorch, a lot about Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), and also taught me how to model my project. It also taught me how to write readable code and handle errors, especially in the predict.py file.

I gained understanding about classification and how to implement it with neural networks and deep learning. While working on this, I learned the basics of matplotlib and mlxtend and also realized the impact of data quantity on results, which led to the decision of using only 30% of the data.

I found that the best working optimizer with TinyVGG was an Adam Optimizer with a learning rate of 0.001, trained on 20 epochs and a batch size of 32 with 15 hidden units. This resulting in Train Loss of 0.24 and Test Loss of 2.17, Train Accuracy of 91% and Test Accuracy of 55%.