Tensorflow 3 channel order of color inputs

Question

I'm using tensor flow to process color images with a convolutional neural network. A code snippet is below.

My code runs so I think I got the number of channels right. My question is, how do I correctly order the rgb data? Is it in the form rgbrgbrgb or would it be rrrgggbbb? Presently I am using the latter. Thanks. Any help would be appreciated.

    c_output = 2
    c_input = 784 * 3

    def weight_variable(shape):
        initial = tf.truncated_normal(shape, stddev=0.1)
        return tf.Variable(initial)

    def bias_variable(shape):
        initial = tf.constant(0.1, shape=shape)
        return tf.Variable(initial)

    def conv2d(x, W):
        return tf.nn.conv2d(x, W, strides=[1, 1, 1, 1], padding='SAME')

    def max_pool_2x2(x):
        return tf.nn.max_pool(x, ksize=[1, 2, 2, 1],
                              strides=[1, 2, 2, 1], padding='SAME')

    self.c_x = tf.placeholder(tf.float32, shape=[None, c_input])
    self.c_y_ = tf.placeholder(tf.float32, shape=[None, c_output])

    self.W_conv1 = weight_variable([5, 5, 3, 32])
    self.b_conv1 = bias_variable([32])
    self.x_image = tf.reshape(self.c_x, [-1, 28, 28  , 3])
    self.h_conv1 = tf.nn.relu(conv2d(self.x_image, self.W_conv1) + self.b_conv1)
    self.h_pool1 = max_pool_2x2(self.h_conv1)

    self.W_conv2 = weight_variable([5, 5, 32, 64])
    self.b_conv2 = bias_variable([64])

    self.h_conv2 = tf.nn.relu(conv2d(self.h_pool1, self.W_conv2) + self.b_conv2)
    self.h_pool2 = max_pool_2x2(self.h_conv2)

    self.W_fc1 = weight_variable([7 * 7 * 64, 1024])
    self.b_fc1 = bias_variable([1024])

    self.h_pool2_flat = tf.reshape(self.h_pool2, [-1, 7 * 7 * 64 ])
    self.h_fc1 = tf.nn.relu(tf.matmul(self.h_pool2_flat, self.W_fc1) + self.b_fc1)

    self.keep_prob = tf.placeholder(tf.float32)
    self.h_fc1_drop = tf.nn.dropout(self.h_fc1, self.keep_prob)

    self.W_fc2 = weight_variable([1024, c_output])
    self.b_fc2 = bias_variable([c_output])

    self.y_conv = tf.matmul(self.h_fc1_drop, self.W_fc2) + self.b_fc2

    self.c_cross_entropy = tf.reduce_mean(tf.nn.softmax_cross_entropy_with_logits(self.y_conv, self.c_y_))
    self.c_train_step = tf.train.AdamOptimizer(1e-4).minimize(self.c_cross_entropy)
    self.c_correct_prediction = tf.equal(tf.argmax(self.y_conv, 1), tf.argmax(self.c_y_, 1))
    self.c_accuracy = tf.reduce_mean(tf.cast(self.c_correct_prediction, tf.float32))

Answer 1

TL;DR: With your current program, the in-memory layout of the data should be should be R-G-B-R-G-B-R-G-B-R-G-B...

I assume from this line that you are passing in RGB images with 28x28 pixels:

self.x_image = tf.reshape(self.c_x, [-1, 28, 28, 3])

We can call the dimensions of self.x_image are "batch", "height", "width", and "channel". This matches the default data format for tf.nn.conv_2d() and tf.nn.max_pool().

In TensorFlow, the in-memory representation of a tensor is row-major order (or "C" ordering, because that is the representation of arrays in the C programming language). Essentially this means that the rightmost dimension is the fastest changing, and the elements of the tensor are packed together in memory in the following order (where ? stands for the unknown batch size, minus 1):

[0,  0,  0,  0]
[0,  0,  0,  1]
[0,  0,  0,  2]
[0,  0,  1,  0]
...
[?, 27, 27,  1]
[?, 27, 27,  2]

Therefore your program probably isn't interpreting the image data correctly. There are at least two options:

1. Reshape your data to match its true order ("batch", "channels", "height", "width"):

   self.x_image = tf.reshape(self.c_x, [-1, 3, 28, 28])
   

   In fact, this format is sometimes more efficient for convolutions. You can instruct tf.nn.conv2d() and tf.nn.max_pool() to use it without transposing by passing the optional argument data_format="NCHW", but you will also need to change the shape of your bias variables to match.

2. Transpose your image data to match the result of your program using tf.transpose():

   self.x_image = tf.transpose(tf.reshape(self.c_x, [-1, 3, 28, 28]), [0, 2, 3, 1])