Coursera

Deep Learning & Art: Neural Style Transfer

Welcome to the Week 4 assignment! In this lab assignment, you will learn about Neural Style Transfer, an algorithm created by Gatys et al. (2015).

Upon completion of this assignment, you will be able to:

Most of the algorithms you’ve studied optimize a cost function to get a set of parameter values. With Neural Style Transfer, you’ll get to optimize a cost function to get pixel values. Exciting!

Important Note on Submission to the AutoGrader

Before submitting your assignment to the AutoGrader, please make sure you are not doing the following:

  1. You have not added any extra print statement(s) in the assignment.
  2. You have not added any extra code cell(s) in the assignment.
  3. You have not changed any of the function parameters.
  4. You are not using any global variables inside your graded exercises. Unless specifically instructed to do so, please refrain from it and use the local variables instead.
  5. You are not changing the assignment code where it is not required, like creating extra variables.

If you do any of the following, you will get something like, Grader not found (or similarly unexpected) error upon submitting your assignment. Before asking for help/debugging the errors in your assignment, check for these first. If this is the case, and you don’t remember the changes you have made, you can get a fresh copy of the assignment by following these instructions.

Table of Contents

1 - Packages

Run the following code cell to import the necessary packages and dependencies you will need to perform Neural Style Transfer.

import os
import sys
import scipy.io
import scipy.misc
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib.pyplot import imshow
from PIL import Image
import numpy as np
import tensorflow as tf
from tensorflow.python.framework.ops import EagerTensor
import pprint
%matplotlib inline

2 - Problem Statement

Neural Style Transfer (NST) is one of the most fun and interesting optimization techniques in deep learning. It merges two images, namely: a “content” image (C) and a “style” image (S), to create a “generated” image (G). The generated image G combines the “content” of the image C with the “style” of image S.

In this assignment, you are going to combine the Louvre museum in Paris (content image C) with the impressionist style of Claude Monet (content image S) to generate the following image:

Let’s get started!

3 - Transfer Learning

Neural Style Transfer (NST) uses a previously trained convolutional network, and builds on top of that. The idea of using a network trained on a different task and applying it to a new task is called transfer learning.

You will be using the the epynomously named VGG network from the original NST paper published by the Visual Geometry Group at University of Oxford in 2014. Specifically, you’ll use VGG-19, a 19-layer version of the VGG network. This model has already been trained on the very large ImageNet database, and has learned to recognize a variety of low level features (at the shallower layers) and high level features (at the deeper layers).

Run the following code to load parameters from the VGG model. This may take a few seconds.

tf.random.set_seed(272) # DO NOT CHANGE THIS VALUE
pp = pprint.PrettyPrinter(indent=4)
img_size = 400
vgg = tf.keras.applications.VGG19(include_top=False,
                                  input_shape=(img_size, img_size, 3),
                                  weights='pretrained-model/vgg19_weights_tf_dim_ordering_tf_kernels_notop.h5')

vgg.trainable = False
pp.pprint(vgg)
<tensorflow.python.keras.engine.functional.Functional object at 0x7fc4dc592748>

4 - Neural Style Transfer (NST)

Next, you will be building the Neural Style Transfer (NST) algorithm in three steps:

4.1 - Computing the Content Cost

4.1.1 - Make Generated Image G Match the Content of Image C

One goal you should aim for when performing NST is for the content in generated image G to match the content of image C. To do so, you’ll need an understanding of shallow versus deep layers :

To choose a “middle” activation layer $a^{[l]}$ :

You need the “generated” image G to have similar content as the input image C. Suppose you have chosen some layer’s activations to represent the content of an image.

To forward propagate image “C:”

To forward propagate image “G”:

In this running example, the content image C will be the picture of the Louvre Museum in Paris. Run the code below to see a picture of the Louvre.

content_image = Image.open("images/louvre.jpg")
print("The content image (C) shows the Louvre museum's pyramid surrounded by old Paris buildings, against a sunny sky with a few clouds.")
content_image
The content image (C) shows the Louvre museum's pyramid surrounded by old Paris buildings, against a sunny sky with a few clouds.

png

4.1.2 - Content Cost Function $J_{content}(C,G)$

One goal you should aim for when performing NST is for the content in generated image G to match the content of image C. A method to achieve this is to calculate the content cost function, which will be defined as:

$$J_{content}(C,G) = \frac{1}{4 \times n_H \times n_W \times n_C}\sum _{ \text{all entries}} (a^{(C)} - a^{(G)})^2\tag{1} $$

Excercise 1 - compute_content_cost

Compute the “content cost” using TensorFlow.

Instructions:

a_G: hidden layer activations representing content of the image G
a_C: hidden layer activations representing content of the image C

The 3 steps to implement this function are:

  1. Retrieve dimensions from a_G:
    • To retrieve dimensions from a tensor X, use: X.get_shape().as_list()
  2. Unroll a_C and a_G as explained in the picture above
  3. Compute the content cost:

Additional Hints for “Unrolling”

# UNQ_C1
# GRADED FUNCTION: compute_content_cost

def compute_content_cost(content_output, generated_output):
    """
    Computes the content cost
    
    Arguments:
    a_C -- tensor of dimension (1, n_H, n_W, n_C), hidden layer activations representing content of the image C 
    a_G -- tensor of dimension (1, n_H, n_W, n_C), hidden layer activations representing content of the image G
    
    Returns: 
    J_content -- scalar that you compute using equation 1 above.
    """
    a_C = content_output[-1]
    a_G = generated_output[-1]
    
    ### START CODE HERE
    
    # Retrieve dimensions from a_G (≈1 line)
    _, n_H, n_W, n_C = a_G.get_shape().as_list()
    
    # Reshape a_C and a_G (≈2 lines)
    a_C_unrolled = tf.reshape(a_C, shape = [1, n_H * n_W, n_C])
    a_G_unrolled = tf.reshape(a_G, shape = [1, n_H * n_W, n_C])
    
    # compute the cost with tensorflow (≈1 line)
    J_content = tf.reduce_sum(tf.square(tf.subtract(a_C_unrolled, a_G_unrolled))) / (4 * n_H * n_W * n_C)
    
    ### END CODE HERE
    
    return J_content
tf.random.set_seed(1)
a_C = tf.random.normal([1, 1, 4, 4, 3], mean=1, stddev=4)
a_G = tf.random.normal([1, 1, 4, 4, 3], mean=1, stddev=4)
J_content = compute_content_cost(a_C, a_G)
J_content_0 = compute_content_cost(a_C, a_C)
assert type(J_content) == EagerTensor, "Use the tensorflow function"
assert np.isclose(J_content_0, 0.0), "Wrong value. compute_content_cost(A, A) must be 0"
assert np.isclose(J_content, 7.0568767), f"Wrong value. Expected {7.0568767},  current{J_content}"

print("J_content = " + str(J_content))

# Test that it works with symbolic tensors
ll = tf.keras.layers.Dense(8, activation='relu', input_shape=(1, 4, 4, 3))
model_tmp = tf.keras.models.Sequential()
model_tmp.add(ll)
try:
    compute_content_cost(ll.output, ll.output)
    print("\033[92mAll tests passed")
except Exception as inst:
    print("\n\033[91mDon't use the numpy API inside compute_content_cost\n")
    print(inst)
J_content = tf.Tensor(7.056877, shape=(), dtype=float32)
All tests passed

Expected Output:

J_content 7.0568767

Congrats! You’ve now successfully calculated the content cost function!


What you should remember:

4.2 - Computing the Style Cost

For the running example, you will use the following style image:

example = Image.open("images/monet_800600.jpg")
example

png

This was painted in the style of impressionism.

Now let’s see how you can now define a “style” cost function $J_{style}(S,G)$!

4.2.1 - Style Matrix

Gram matrix

Two meanings of the variable $G$

Compute Gram matrix $G_{gram}$

You will compute the Style matrix by multiplying the “unrolled” filter matrix with its transpose:

$$\mathbf{G}{gram} = \mathbf{A}{unrolled} \mathbf{A}_{unrolled}^T$$

$G_{(gram)ij}$: correlation

The result is a matrix of dimension $(n_C,n_C)$ where $n_C$ is the number of filters (channels). The value $G_{(gram)i,j}$ measures how similar the activations of filter $i$ are to the activations of filter $j$.

$G_{(gram),ii}$: prevalence of patterns or textures

By capturing the prevalence of different types of features ($G_{(gram)ii}$), as well as how much different features occur together ($G_{(gram)ij}$), the Style matrix $G_{gram}$ measures the style of an image.

Exercise 2 - gram_matrix

# UNQ_C2
# GRADED FUNCTION: gram_matrix

def gram_matrix(A):
    """
    Argument:
    A -- matrix of shape (n_C, n_H*n_W)
    
    Returns:
    GA -- Gram matrix of A, of shape (n_C, n_C)
    """  
    ### START CODE HERE
    
    #(≈1 line)
    GA = tf.matmul(A, tf.transpose(A))
    
    ### END CODE HERE

    return GA
tf.random.set_seed(1)
A = tf.random.normal([3, 2 * 1], mean=1, stddev=4)
GA = gram_matrix(A)

assert type(GA) == EagerTensor, "Use the tensorflow function"
assert GA.shape == (3, 3), "Wrong shape. Check the order of the matmul parameters"
assert np.allclose(GA[0,:], [63.1888, -26.721275, -7.7320204]), "Wrong values."

print("GA = \n" + str(GA))

print("\033[92mAll tests passed")
GA = 
tf.Tensor(
[[ 63.1888    -26.721275   -7.7320204]
 [-26.721275   12.76758    -2.5158243]
 [ -7.7320204  -2.5158243  23.752384 ]], shape=(3, 3), dtype=float32)
All tests passed

Expected Output:

GA [[ 63.1888 -26.721275 -7.7320204]
[-26.721275 12.76758 -2.5158243]
[ -7.7320204 -2.5158243 23.752384 ]]

4.2.2 - Style Cost

You now know how to calculate the Gram matrix. Congrats! Your next goal will be to minimize the distance between the Gram matrix of the “style” image S and the Gram matrix of the “generated” image G.

$$J_{style}^{[l]}(S,G) = \frac{1}{4 \times {n_C}^2 \times (n_H \times n_W)^2} \sum {i=1}^{n_C}\sum{j=1}^{n_C}(G^{(S)}{(gram)i,j} - G^{(G)}{(gram)i,j})^2\tag{2} $$

Exercise 3 - compute_layer_style_cost

Compute the style cost for a single layer.

Instructions: The 3 steps to implement this function are:

  1. Retrieve dimensions from the hidden layer activations a_G:
    • To retrieve dimensions from a tensor X, use: X.get_shape().as_list()
  2. Unroll the hidden layer activations a_S and a_G into 2D matrices, as explained in the picture above (see the images in the sections “computing the content cost” and “style matrix”).
  3. Compute the Style matrix of the images S and G. (Use the function you had previously written.)
  4. Compute the Style cost:

Additional Hints

# UNQ_C3
# GRADED FUNCTION: compute_layer_style_cost

def compute_layer_style_cost(a_S, a_G):
    """
    Arguments:
    a_S -- tensor of dimension (1, n_H, n_W, n_C), hidden layer activations representing style of the image S 
    a_G -- tensor of dimension (1, n_H, n_W, n_C), hidden layer activations representing style of the image G
    
    Returns: 
    J_style_layer -- tensor representing a scalar value, style cost defined above by equation (2)
    """
    ### START CODE HERE
    
    # Retrieve dimensions from a_G (≈1 line)
    _, n_H, n_W, n_C = a_G.get_shape().as_list()
    
    # Reshape the images from (n_H * n_W, n_C) to have them of shape (n_C, n_H * n_W) (≈2 lines)
    a_S = tf.transpose(tf.reshape(a_S, shape = [n_H * n_W, n_C]))
    a_G = tf.transpose(tf.reshape(a_G, shape = [n_H * n_W, n_C]))

    # Computing gram_matrices for both images S and G (≈2 lines)
    GS = gram_matrix(a_S)
    GG = gram_matrix(a_G)

    # Computing the loss (≈1 line)
    J_style_layer = tf.reduce_sum(tf.square(tf.subtract(GS, GG)))  / (4 * ((n_H * n_W) ** 2) * (n_C ** 2))
    #J_style_layer = None
    
    ### END CODE HERE
    
    return J_style_layer
tf.random.set_seed(1)
a_S = tf.random.normal([1, 4, 4, 3], mean=1, stddev=4)
a_G = tf.random.normal([1, 4, 4, 3], mean=1, stddev=4)
J_style_layer_GG = compute_layer_style_cost(a_G, a_G)
J_style_layer_SG = compute_layer_style_cost(a_S, a_G)


assert type(J_style_layer_GG) == EagerTensor, "Use the tensorflow functions"
assert np.isclose(J_style_layer_GG, 0.0), "Wrong value. compute_layer_style_cost(A, A) must be 0"
assert J_style_layer_SG > 0, "Wrong value. compute_layer_style_cost(A, B) must be greater than 0 if A != B"
assert np.isclose(J_style_layer_SG, 14.017805), "Wrong value."

print("J_style_layer = " + str(J_style_layer_SG))



J_style_layer = tf.Tensor(14.017805, shape=(), dtype=float32)

Expected Output:

J_style_layer 14.017805

4.2.3 Style Weights

Start by listing the layer names:

for layer in vgg.layers:
    print(layer.name)
input_1
block1_conv1
block1_conv2
block1_pool
block2_conv1
block2_conv2
block2_pool
block3_conv1
block3_conv2
block3_conv3
block3_conv4
block3_pool
block4_conv1
block4_conv2
block4_conv3
block4_conv4
block4_pool
block5_conv1
block5_conv2
block5_conv3
block5_conv4
block5_pool

Get a look at the output of a layer block5_conv4. You will later define this as the content layer, which will represent the image.

vgg.get_layer('block5_conv4').output
<tf.Tensor 'block5_conv4/Relu:0' shape=(None, 25, 25, 512) dtype=float32>

Now choose layers to represent the style of the image and assign style costs:

STYLE_LAYERS = [
    ('block1_conv1', 0.2),
    ('block2_conv1', 0.2),
    ('block3_conv1', 0.2),
    ('block4_conv1', 0.2),
    ('block5_conv1', 0.2)]

You can combine the style costs for different layers as follows:

$$J_{style}(S,G) = \sum_{l} \lambda^{[l]} J^{[l]}_{style}(S,G)$$

where the values for $\lambda^{[l]}$ are given in STYLE_LAYERS.

Exercise 4 - compute_style_cost

Compute style cost

Instructions:

Description of compute_style_cost

For each layer:

Once you’re done with the loop:

def compute_style_cost(style_image_output, generated_image_output, STYLE_LAYERS=STYLE_LAYERS):
    """
    Computes the overall style cost from several chosen layers
    
    Arguments:
    style_image_output -- our tensorflow model
    generated_image_output --
    STYLE_LAYERS -- A python list containing:
                        - the names of the layers we would like to extract style from
                        - a coefficient for each of them
    
    Returns: 
    J_style -- tensor representing a scalar value, style cost defined above by equation (2)
    """
    
    # initialize the overall style cost
    J_style = 0

    # Set a_S to be the hidden layer activation from the layer we have selected.
    # The last element of the array contains the content layer image, which must not be used.
    a_S = style_image_output[:-1]

    # Set a_G to be the output of the choosen hidden layers.
    # The last element of the list contains the content layer image which must not be used.
    a_G = generated_image_output[:-1]
    for i, weight in zip(range(len(a_S)), STYLE_LAYERS):  
        # Compute style_cost for the current layer
        J_style_layer = compute_layer_style_cost(a_S[i], a_G[i])

        # Add weight * J_style_layer of this layer to overall style cost
        J_style += weight[1] * J_style_layer

    return J_style

How do you choose the coefficients for each layer? The deeper layers capture higher-level concepts, and the features in the deeper layers are less localized in the image relative to each other. So if you want the generated image to softly follow the style image, try choosing larger weights for deeper layers and smaller weights for the first layers. In contrast, if you want the generated image to strongly follow the style image, try choosing smaller weights for deeper layers and larger weights for the first layers.


What you should remember:

  • The style of an image can be represented using the Gram matrix of a hidden layer’s activations.
  • You get even better results by combining this representation from multiple different layers.
  • This is in contrast to the content representation, where usually using just a single hidden layer is sufficient.
  • Minimizing the style cost will cause the image $G$ to follow the style of the image $S$.

4.3 - Defining the Total Cost to Optimize

Finally, you will create a cost function that minimizes both the style and the content cost. The formula is:

$$J(G) = \alpha J_{content}(C,G) + \beta J_{style}(S,G)$$

Exercise 5 - total_cost

Implement the total cost function which includes both the content cost and the style cost.

# UNQ_C4
# GRADED FUNCTION: total_cost
@tf.function()
def total_cost(J_content, J_style, alpha = 10, beta = 40):
    """
    Computes the total cost function
    
    Arguments:
    J_content -- content cost coded above
    J_style -- style cost coded above
    alpha -- hyperparameter weighting the importance of the content cost
    beta -- hyperparameter weighting the importance of the style cost
    
    Returns:
    J -- total cost as defined by the formula above.
    """
    ### START CODE HERE
    
    #(≈1 line)
    J = alpha * J_content + beta * J_style
    
    ### START CODE HERE

    return J
J_content = 0.2    
J_style = 0.8
J = total_cost(J_content, J_style)

assert type(J) == EagerTensor, "Do not remove the @tf.function() modifier from the function"
assert J == 34, "Wrong value. Try inverting the order of alpha and beta in the J calculation"
assert np.isclose(total_cost(0.3, 0.5, 3, 8), 4.9), "Wrong value. Use the alpha and beta parameters"

np.random.seed(1)
print("J = " + str(total_cost(np.random.uniform(0, 1), np.random.uniform(0, 1))))

print("\033[92mAll tests passed")
J = tf.Tensor(32.9832, shape=(), dtype=float32)
All tests passed

Expected Output:

J 32.9832

What you should remember:

  • The total cost is a linear combination of the content cost $J_{content}(C,G)$ and the style cost $J_{style}(S,G)$.
  • $\alpha$ and $\beta$ are hyperparameters that control the relative weighting between content and style.

5 - Solving the Optimization Problem

Finally, you get to put everything together to implement Neural Style Transfer!

Here’s what your program be able to do:

  1. Load the content image
  2. Load the style image
  3. Randomly initialize the image to be generated
  4. Load the VGG19 model
  5. Compute the content cost
  6. Compute the style cost
  7. Compute the total cost
  8. Define the optimizer and learning rate

Here are the individual steps in detail.

5.1 Load the Content Image

Run the following code cell to load, reshape, and normalize your “content” image C (the Louvre museum picture):

content_image = np.array(Image.open("images/louvre_small.jpg").resize((img_size, img_size)))
content_image = tf.constant(np.reshape(content_image, ((1,) + content_image.shape)))

print(content_image.shape)
imshow(content_image[0])
plt.show()
(1, 400, 400, 3)

png

5.2 Load the Style Image

Now load, reshape and normalize your “style” image (Claude Monet’s painting):

style_image =  np.array(Image.open("images/monet.jpg").resize((img_size, img_size)))
style_image = tf.constant(np.reshape(style_image, ((1,) + style_image.shape)))

print(style_image.shape)
imshow(style_image[0])
plt.show()
(1, 400, 400, 3)

png

5.3 Randomly Initialize the Image to be Generated

Now, you get to initialize the “generated” image as a noisy image created from the content_image.

  • The generated image is slightly correlated with the content image.
  • By initializing the pixels of the generated image to be mostly noise but slightly correlated with the content image, this will help the content of the “generated” image more rapidly match the content of the “content” image.
generated_image = tf.Variable(tf.image.convert_image_dtype(content_image, tf.float32))
noise = tf.random.uniform(tf.shape(generated_image), -0.25, 0.25)
generated_image = tf.add(generated_image, noise)
generated_image = tf.clip_by_value(generated_image, clip_value_min=0.0, clip_value_max=1.0)

print(generated_image.shape)
imshow(generated_image.numpy()[0])
plt.show()
(1, 400, 400, 3)

png

5.4 - Load Pre-trained VGG19 Model

Next, as explained in part(2), define a function which loads the VGG19 model and returns a list of the outputs for the middle layers.

def get_layer_outputs(vgg, layer_names):
    """ Creates a vgg model that returns a list of intermediate output values."""
    outputs = [vgg.get_layer(layer[0]).output for layer in layer_names]

    model = tf.keras.Model([vgg.input], outputs)
    return model

Now, define the content layer and build the model.

content_layer = [('block5_conv4', 1)]

vgg_model_outputs = get_layer_outputs(vgg, STYLE_LAYERS + content_layer)

Save the outputs for the content and style layers in separate variables.

content_target = vgg_model_outputs(content_image)  # Content encoder
style_targets = vgg_model_outputs(style_image)     # Style enconder

5.5 - Compute Total Cost

5.5.1 - Compute the Content image Encoding (a_C)

You’ve built the model, and now to compute the content cost, you will encode your content image using the appropriate hidden layer activations. Set this encoding to the variable a_C. Later in the assignment, you will need to do the proper with the generated image, by setting the variable a_G to be the appropriate hidden layer activations. You will use layer block5_conv4 to compute the encoding. The code below does the following:

  1. Set a_C to be the tensor giving the hidden layer activation for layer “block5_conv4” using the content image.
# Assign the content image to be the input of the VGG model.  
# Set a_C to be the hidden layer activation from the layer we have selected
preprocessed_content =  tf.Variable(tf.image.convert_image_dtype(content_image, tf.float32))
a_C = vgg_model_outputs(preprocessed_content)

5.5.2 - Compute the Style image Encoding (a_S)

The code below sets a_S to be the tensor giving the hidden layer activation for STYLE_LAYERS using our style image.

# Assign the input of the model to be the "style" image 
preprocessed_style =  tf.Variable(tf.image.convert_image_dtype(style_image, tf.float32))
a_S = vgg_model_outputs(preprocessed_style)

Below are the utils that you will need to display the images generated by the style transfer model.

def clip_0_1(image):
    """
    Truncate all the pixels in the tensor to be between 0 and 1
    
    Arguments:
    image -- Tensor
    J_style -- style cost coded above

    Returns:
    Tensor
    """
    return tf.clip_by_value(image, clip_value_min=0.0, clip_value_max=1.0)

def tensor_to_image(tensor):
    """
    Converts the given tensor into a PIL image
    
    Arguments:
    tensor -- Tensor
    
    Returns:
    Image: A PIL image
    """
    tensor = tensor * 255
    tensor = np.array(tensor, dtype=np.uint8)
    if np.ndim(tensor) > 3:
        assert tensor.shape[0] == 1
        tensor = tensor[0]
    return Image.fromarray(tensor)

Exercise 6 - train_step

Implement the train_step() function for transfer learning

# UNQ_C5
# GRADED FUNCTION: train_step

optimizer = tf.keras.optimizers.Adam(learning_rate=0.01)

@tf.function()
def train_step(generated_image):
    with tf.GradientTape() as tape:
        # In this function you must use the precomputed encoded images a_S and a_C
        # Compute a_G as the vgg_model_outputs for the current generated image
        
        ### START CODE HERE
        
        #(1 line)
        a_G = vgg_model_outputs(generated_image)
        
        # Compute the style cost
        #(1 line)
        J_style = compute_style_cost(style_image_output = a_S, generated_image_output = a_G)

        #(2 lines)
        # Compute the content cost
        J_content = compute_content_cost(content_output = a_C, generated_output = a_G)
        # Compute the total cost
        J = total_cost(J_content = J_content, J_style = J_style, alpha = 10, beta = 40)
        
        ### END CODE HERE
        
    grad = tape.gradient(J, generated_image)

    optimizer.apply_gradients([(grad, generated_image)])
    generated_image.assign(clip_0_1(generated_image))
    # For grading purposes
    return J
# You always must run the last cell before this one. You will get an error if not.
generated_image = tf.Variable(generated_image)


J1 = train_step(generated_image)
print(J1)
assert type(J1) == EagerTensor, f"Wrong type {type(J1)} != {EagerTensor}"
assert np.isclose(J1, 25629.055, rtol=0.05), f"Unexpected cost for epoch 0: {J1} != {25629.055}"

J2 = train_step(generated_image)
print(J2)
assert np.isclose(J2, 17812.627, rtol=0.05), f"Unexpected cost for epoch 1: {J2} != {17735.512}"

print("\033[92mAll tests passed")
tf.Tensor(25629.055, shape=(), dtype=float32)
tf.Tensor(17735.512, shape=(), dtype=float32)
All tests passed

Expected output

tf.Tensor(25629.055, shape=(), dtype=float32)
tf.Tensor(17735.512, shape=(), dtype=float32)

Looks like it’s working! Now you’ll get to put it all together into one function to better see your results!

5.6 - Train the Model

Run the following cell to generate an artistic image. It should take about 3min on a GPU for 2500 iterations. Neural Style Transfer is generally trained using GPUs.

If you increase the learning rate you can speed up the style transfer, but often at the cost of quality.

# Show the generated image at some epochs
# Uncoment to reset the style transfer process. You will need to compile the train_step function again 
epochs = 2501
for i in range(epochs):
    train_step(generated_image)
    if i % 250 == 0:
        print(f"Epoch {i} ")
    if i % 250 == 0:
        image = tensor_to_image(generated_image)
        imshow(image)
        image.save(f"output/image_{i}.jpg")
        plt.show() 
Epoch 0 

png

Epoch 250 

png

Epoch 500 

png

Epoch 750 

png

Epoch 1000 

png

Epoch 1250 

png

Epoch 1500 

png

Epoch 1750 

png

Epoch 2000 

png

Epoch 2250 

png

Epoch 2500 

png

Now, run the following code cell to see the results!

# Show the 3 images in a row
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(16, 4))
ax = fig.add_subplot(1, 3, 1)
imshow(content_image[0])
ax.title.set_text('Content image')
ax = fig.add_subplot(1, 3, 2)
imshow(style_image[0])
ax.title.set_text('Style image')
ax = fig.add_subplot(1, 3, 3)
imshow(generated_image[0])
ax.title.set_text('Generated image')
plt.show()

png

Look at that! You did it! After running this, in the upper bar of the notebook click on “File” and then “Open”. Go to the “/output” directory to see all the saved images. Open “generated_image” to see the generated image! :)

Running for around 20000 epochs with a learning rate of 0.001, you should see something like the image presented below on the right:

The hyperparameters were set so that you didn’t have to wait too long to see an initial result. To get the best looking results, you may want to try running the optimization algorithm longer (and perhaps with a smaller learning rate). After completing and submitting this assignment, come back and play more with this notebook, and see if you can generate even better looking images. But first, give yourself a pat on the back for finishing this long assignment!

Here are few other examples:

  • The beautiful ruins of the ancient city of Persepolis (Iran) with the style of Van Gogh (The Starry Night)
  • The tomb of Cyrus the great in Pasargadae with the style of a Ceramic Kashi from Ispahan.
  • A scientific study of a turbulent fluid with the style of a abstract blue fluid painting.

Free Up Resources for Other Learners

If you don’t plan on continuing to the next Optional section, help us to provide our learners a smooth learning experience, by freeing up the resources used by your assignment by running the cell below so that the other learners can take advantage of those resources just as much as you did. Thank you!

Note:

  • Run the cell below when you are done with the assignment and are ready to submit it for grading.
  • When you’ll run it, a pop up will open, click Ok.
  • Running the cell will restart the kernel.
%%javascript
IPython.notebook.save_checkpoint();
if (confirm("Clear memory?") == true)
{
    IPython.notebook.kernel.restart();
}
<IPython.core.display.Javascript object>

6 - Test With Your Own Image (Optional/Ungraded)

Finally, you can also rerun the algorithm on your own images!

To do so, go back to part(4) and change the content image and style image with your own pictures. In detail, here’s what you should do:

  1. Click on “File -> Open” in the upper tab of the notebook
  2. Go to “/images” and upload your images (images will scaled to 400x400, but you can change that parameter too in section 2), rename them “my_content.png” and “my_style.png” for example.
  3. Change the code in part(4) from :
content_image = np.array(Image.open("images/louvre_small.jpg").resize((img_size, img_size)))
style_image =  np.array(Image.open("images/monet.jpg").resize((img_size, img_size)))

  to:

content_image = np.array(Image.open("images/my_content.jpg").resize((img_size, img_size)))
style_image =  np.array(Image.open("my_style.jpg").resize((img_size, img_size)))

  1. Rerun the cells (you may need to restart the Kernel in the upper tab of the notebook).

You can share your generated images with us on social media with the hashtag #deeplearningAI or by tagging us directly!

Here are some ideas on how to tune your hyperparameters:

  • To select different layers to represent the style, redefine STYLE_LAYERS
  • To alter the number of iterations you want to run the algorithm, try changing epochs given in Section 5.6.
  • To alter the relative weight of content versus style, try altering alpha and beta values

Happy coding!

Free Up Resources for Other Learners

In order to provide our learners a smooth learning experience, please free up the resources used by your assignment by running the cell below so that the other learners can take advantage of those resources just as much as you did. Thank you!

Note:

  • Run the cell below when you are done with the assignment and are ready to submit it for grading.
  • When you’ll run it, a pop up will open, click Ok.
  • Running the cell will restart the kernel.
%%javascript
IPython.notebook.save_checkpoint();
if (confirm("Clear memory?") == true)
{
    IPython.notebook.kernel.restart();
}

Conclusion

Great job on completing this assignment! You are now able to use Neural Style Transfer to generate artistic images. This is also your first time building a model in which the optimization algorithm updates the pixel values rather than the neural network’s parameters. Deep learning has many different types of models and this is only one of them!

What you should remember

  • Neural Style Transfer is an algorithm that given a content image C and a style image S can generate an artistic image
  • It uses representations (hidden layer activations) based on a pretrained ConvNet.
  • The content cost function is computed using one hidden layer’s activations.
  • The style cost function for one layer is computed using the Gram matrix of that layer’s activations. The overall style cost function is obtained using several hidden layers.
  • Optimizing the total cost function results in synthesizing new images.

Congratulations on finishing the course!

This was the final programming exercise of this course. Congratulations - you’ve finished all the programming exercises of this course on Convolutional Networks! See you in Course 5, Sequence Models!

7 - References

The Neural Style Transfer algorithm was due to Gatys et al. (2015). Harish Narayanan and Github user “log0” also have highly readable write-ups this lab was inspired by. The pre-trained network used in this implementation is a VGG network, which is due to Simonyan and Zisserman (2015). Pre-trained weights were from the work of the MathConvNet team.