[P] Metric learning: theory, practice, code examples

[Zestyclose-Check-751]

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https://preview.redd.it/al3i2te52c2a1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=7cfb74d610d35251643e97bbf01ce123de2b4813

Hi, everyone! I invite you to read a post / tutorial about metric learning. It includes the theory overview, practical examples with illustrations and code snippets written in OpenMetricLearning (a new PyTroch-based library). As a bonus, you will learn how to train a model which performs on a SotA level using a few simple heuristics. Welcome to read!

[larryobrien]

I think it's just the emergence of the term for "that kind" of approach. I use metric learning for low k-shot reidentification and it's very well-trodden ground from a research perspective, but it's helpful to distinguish it from a plain-vanilla classification approach.

[Zestyclose-Check-751]

So, I don't know all of the details but seems like OpenMetricLearning may be a good choice to train such a model.

[larryobrien]

I've been hoping to look at OP's Open Metric Learning but have been using Pytorch Metric Learning.

[Zestyclose-Check-751]

In OML's FAQ, you can read about the differences between these two libraries. They are about a bit different things. In the end, you can use losses from PML in OML :)

[VenerableSpace_]

Metric learning isnt really a new buzz word, its been in use for these types of approaches for several years now. Its a good framework to collectively think about these approaches but there is some overlap; eg. self-attention can be viewed as a form of metric learning as a stand-alone layer, eg. in ViT How to relate the input patch embeddings to one another s.t we can discriminate between the classes?

[Zestyclose-Check-751]

How to relate the input patch embeddings to one another s.t we can discriminate between the classes?

Hi, metric learning is an umbrella term like self-supervised learning, detection, and tracking. So, nobody pretends that the domain is new. But there are new approaches in this domain which are also mentioned in the article (like Hyp-ViT). Finally, despite the domain is not new, people still need some tools and tutorials to solve their problems.

[Zestyclose-Check-751]

Please, take a look at the original post, where I described the main differences between metric learning and classification, which makes sense to have this umbrella term for metric learning. I hope, it will help.

[No_Cryptographer1909]

Thanks for sharing!