Book Image

Machine Learning for OpenCV

By : Michael Beyeler
Book Image

Machine Learning for OpenCV

By: Michael Beyeler

Overview of this book

Machine learning is no longer just a buzzword, it is all around us: from protecting your email, to automatically tagging friends in pictures, to predicting what movies you like. Computer vision is one of today's most exciting application fields of machine learning, with Deep Learning driving innovative systems such as self-driving cars and Google’s DeepMind. OpenCV lies at the intersection of these topics, providing a comprehensive open-source library for classic as well as state-of-the-art computer vision and machine learning algorithms. In combination with Python Anaconda, you will have access to all the open-source computing libraries you could possibly ask for. Machine learning for OpenCV begins by introducing you to the essential concepts of statistical learning, such as classification and regression. Once all the basics are covered, you will start exploring various algorithms such as decision trees, support vector machines, and Bayesian networks, and learn how to combine them with other OpenCV functionality. As the book progresses, so will your machine learning skills, until you are ready to take on today's hottest topic in the field: Deep Learning. By the end of this book, you will be ready to take on your own machine learning problems, either by building on the existing source code or developing your own algorithm from scratch!
Table of Contents (13 chapters)

Understanding multilayer perceptrons

In order to create nonlinear decision boundaries, we can combine multiple perceptrons to form a larger network. This is also known as a multilayer perceptron (MLP). MLPs usually consist of at least three layers, where the first layer has a node (or neuron) for every input feature of the dataset, and the last layer has a node for every class label. The layer in between is called the hidden layer. An example of this feedforward neural network architecture is shown in the following figure:

Example of a three-layer perceptron

In this network, every circle is an artificial neuron (or essentially a perceptron), and the output of one artificial neuron might serve as input to the next artificial neuron, much like how real biological neurons are wired up in the brain. By placing perceptrons side by side, we get a single one-layer neural network. Analogously...