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The IBM Visual Recognition classifier is simple to use and works well. However, custom classifier creation is expensive ($0.10/image) and time-consuming. Accidental deleting of a custom classifier puts any workflow using that classifier at risk. There is no obvious way in the API or dashboard to download, duplicate, or lock a custom classifier. This is a concern for production use.

How can I back up a custom classifier created using IBM Watson Visual Recognition? This question went unanswered on IBM's developer forum and I am hoping someone from IBM can provide guidance here.

Thank you!

Robert Calhoun
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2 Answers2

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There is no API method to back up or download a custom classifier. However if you still have the training data you can train a classifier with the same data and you will have the same performance again, with a different classifier_id. This would incur additional expense, as you noted.

We recognize the usefulness of this idea as a feature and will take it into consideration for development.

In the meantime, if a classifier is accidentally deleted or changed, please file a Bluemix support ticket, we may be able to help.

Matt Hill
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  • Thank you both for your quick response. Retraining on the same dataset is certainly an option, but for thousands of images it is a very expensive one. The inability to back up or duplicate recipes also makes modification of an existing recipe dangerous; what if the augmented recipe has worse performance than before? There is no way to revert. If IBM does not wish to expose the details of the service by allowing recipe download, it should at least offer basic versioning along the lines of any source-code control system. Otherwise, I feel the service is too risky for production use. – Robert Calhoun Jun 17 '17 at 18:34
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It's currently not possible to backup or download a custom classifier (only create, update, and delete them via the API).

tmarkiewicz
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