Book Image

Synthetic Data for Machine Learning

By : Abdulrahman Kerim
Book Image

Synthetic Data for Machine Learning

By: Abdulrahman Kerim

Overview of this book

The machine learning (ML) revolution has made our world unimaginable without its products and services. However, training ML models requires vast datasets, which entails a process plagued by high costs, errors, and privacy concerns associated with collecting and annotating real data. Synthetic data emerges as a promising solution to all these challenges. This book is designed to bridge theory and practice of using synthetic data, offering invaluable support for your ML journey. Synthetic Data for Machine Learning empowers you to tackle real data issues, enhance your ML models' performance, and gain a deep understanding of synthetic data generation. You’ll explore the strengths and weaknesses of various approaches, gaining practical knowledge with hands-on examples of modern methods, including Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) and diffusion models. Additionally, you’ll uncover the secrets and best practices to harness the full potential of synthetic data. By the end of this book, you’ll have mastered synthetic data and positioned yourself as a market leader, ready for more advanced, cost-effective, and higher-quality data sources, setting you ahead of your peers in the next generation of ML.
Table of Contents (25 chapters)
1
Part 1:Real Data Issues, Limitations, and Challenges
5
Part 2:An Overview of Synthetic Data for Machine Learning
8
Part 3:Synthetic Data Generation Approaches
13
Part 4:Case Studies and Best Practices
18
Part 5:Current Challenges and Future Perspectives

Introduction to simulators and rendering engines

In this section, we will dive into the world of simulators and rendering engines. We will look at the history and evolution of these powerful tools for synthetic data generation.

Simulators

A simulator is software or a program written to imitate or simulate certain processes or phenomena of the real world. Simulators usually create a virtual world where scientists, engineers, and other users can test their algorithms, products, and hypotheses. At the same time, you can use this virtual environment to help you learn about and practice complex tasks. These tasks are usually dangerous and very expensive to perform in the real world. For example, driving simulators teach learners how to drive and how to react to unexpected scenarios such as a child suddenly crossing the street, which is extremely dangerous to do in the real world.

Simulators are used in various fields, such as aviation, healthcare, engineering, driving, space, farming...