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Dec 20, 2015

nnForge v2.0.2

Small release nnForge v2.0.2 here:
  • Gradient modifier layer added
  • Structured_data_constant_reader added
  • Error function layers accept the 3rd optional input layer - mask
  • ADAM training algo implemented, use "--momentum_type adam", rate should generally be much smaller than for other methods
  • Changed default value for cuda_fixed_working_buffers_ratio to 0.4
I get very nice 5.4 TFLOPS on the whole model when training VGG-A with cuDNN v4 RC.

Nov 24, 2015

nnForge v2.0.1

Hi,

I significantly improved performance of CUDA backend recently in nnForge v2.0.1:
  • Multiple improvements to reduce total buffer sizes, allows running larger chunks (3x for ImageNet):
    • Taking buffer sizes into account when coloring graph
    • Maxout, ReLU, and MaxSubsampling layers consume much less memory in CUDA backend
    • Action graph is optimized to exclude unnecessary concurrency - taking into account device width here
  • Migrated to cuDNN v3
  • Reusing CUDA streams
  • Allocating chunk of mem for fixed working buffers - improves perf
  • Few bug-fixes
See buffer graph coloring for the optimized action graph of VGG-A-like schema to the right. You can get this and other interesting graphs by specifying "--debug_mode 1" option.

Nov 7, 2015

nnForge v2.0.0

Hi all,

6 months passed since last nnForge release and there is a good reason for it: I have been working on a major framework redesign, and now it is out! See nnForge v2.0.0:
  • The model is now arbitrary DAG (directed acyclic graph)
  • Running independent actions in mutiple streams in CUDA backend
  • Memory buffers are heavily reused
The changes are so radical, I had to drop support for the old trained data storage format. Unfortunately this means you will have to re-train your models from scratch.

Expect more goodies in near future!

Apr 30, 2015

nnForge v1.2.0

Hi, this is a pretty big release of nnForge. The most important improvement is that mode schemas are now stored in Protobuf format. You now define the schema via plain text file. Use convert_schema action to convert from old binary format to new one. I also implemented Overfeat functionality - this allows running inference on large input data with fine-frained results efficiently.

All the change are:
  • Schema:
    • Model schema is now stord in Protobuf format. Use convert_schema to convert schemas in old binary format to new one

    • Input and output data normalizers are stored in protobuf format now. Use convert_input_normalizer and convert_output_normalizer to convert existing binary normalizers to new format
    • Schema and data are compatible now if non-empty layers match. Now empty-data layers don't matter
  • Training data:
    • Improvements insupervised_image_stream_reader
    • embed_data_transformer added
  • Training:
    • Nesterov momentum added (see --momentum_type option)
    • uniform_intensity_data_transformer added
    • Momentum data is kept between epochs (it is save and restored as well)
    • ROC result outputs accuracy, precision, recall, and F-score now (in addition to AUC)
  • Visualization:
    • snapshot_invalid now saves images, including binary classifier case
  • Inference:
    • Overfeat functionality added (see tiling option of max subsampling layer, and untile layer)

Mar 26, 2015

nnForge v1.1.13

nnForge v1.1.13 is published with a number of improvements:

  • Data transformrs:
    • Stretch added to distort sampler transformer
    • perspective distortions added to distort_2d transformer
    • reshape_data_transformer added
    • elastic_deformation_2d_data_transformer added
  • Mixture of models:
    • Added --test_validate_save_output and --test_validate_load_output options
    • Running testing and validation from a mixture of output_values
  • Readers:
    • supervised_shuffle_entries_data_reader is made deterministic
    • deterministic image data reader is extended to sampler
  • Layers:
    • Parametric ReLU added (with CPU and GPU backends)
    • Average subsampling is reverted to native implementation (3D and 4D support)
  • Others:
    • Taking RELUs into account when initializing weights
    • validate_progress_network_data_pusher is extended with frequency parameter
    • Quasi-random training data randomization is dropped
    • Memory consumption reduced during testing
    • Resume training (-R) can now be applied with multiple ANNs training (-N)
    • VS2013 projects and solution added (using CUDA 7.0)
    • Fixed fancy backprop for analyzer
    • Bug-fixes

Jan 21, 2015

nnForge v1.1.12

I finally started using cuDNN for some layers of nnForge library, the perf improved. Fermi GPUs are no longer supported; nnForge will run on Kepler and Mawell GPUs only (or CPUs). You will need cuDNN of version at least v2 RC2. Here are all the changes in nnForge v1.1.12:
  • Using cuDNN for a lot of layers now, Fermi is no longer supported
  • New transformers added: convert_to_polar_data_transformer, negate_data_transformer
  • New readers added: supervised_shuffle_entries_data_reader, image related readers (from raw jpegs stored in a single file)
  • Dropout functionality is moved into its own layer with better randomization
  • Soft recified linear layer removed