Tensorflow Object Detection API depends on the following libraries:
For detailed steps to install Tensorflow, follow the Tensorflow installation instructions. A typical user can install Tensorflow using one of the following commands:
# For CPU
pip install tensorflow
# For GPU
pip install tensorflow-gpu
The remaining libraries can be installed on Ubuntu 16.04 using via apt-get:
sudo apt-get install protobuf-compiler python-pil python-lxml python-tk
pip install --user Cython
pip install --user contextlib2
pip install --user jupyter
pip install --user matplotlib
Alternatively, users can install dependencies using pip:
pip install --user Cython
pip install --user contextlib2
pip install --user pillow
pip install --user lxml
pip install --user jupyter
pip install --user matplotlib
Note: sometimes "sudo apt-get install protobuf-compiler" will install Protobuf 3+ versions for you and some users have issues when using 3.5. If that is your case, try the manual installation.
Download the
cocoapi and
copy the pycocotools subfolder to the tensorflow/models/research directory if
you are interested in using COCO evaluation metrics. The default metrics are
based on those used in Pascal VOC evaluation. To use the COCO object detection
metrics add metrics_set: "coco_detection_metrics"
to the eval_config
message
in the config file. To use the COCO instance segmentation metrics add
metrics_set: "coco_mask_metrics"
to the eval_config
message in the config
file.
git clone https://github.com/cocodataset/cocoapi.git
cd cocoapi/PythonAPI
make
cp -r pycocotools <path_to_tensorflow>/models/research/
The Tensorflow Object Detection API uses Protobufs to configure model and training parameters. Before the framework can be used, the Protobuf libraries must be compiled. This should be done by running the following command from the tensorflow/models/research/ directory:
# From tensorflow/models/research/
protoc object_detection/protos/*.proto --python_out=.
Note: If you're getting errors while compiling, you might be using an incompatible protobuf compiler. If that's the case, use the following manual installation
If you are on linux:
Download and install the 3.0 release of protoc, then unzip the file.
# From tensorflow/models/research/
wget -O protobuf.zip https://github.com/google/protobuf/releases/download/v3.0.0/protoc-3.0.0-linux-x86_64.zip
unzip protobuf.zip
Run the compilation process again, but use the downloaded version of protoc
# From tensorflow/models/research/
./bin/protoc object_detection/protos/*.proto --python_out=.
If you are on MacOS:
If you have homebrew, download and install the protobuf with
brew install protobuf
Alternately, run:
curl -OL https://github.com/google/protobuf/releases/download/v3.3.0/$PROTOC_ZIP
sudo unzip -o $PROTOC_ZIP -d /usr/local bin/protoc
rm -f $PROTOC_ZIP
Run the compilation process again:
# From tensorflow/models/research/
protoc object_detection/protos/*.proto --python_out=.
When running locally, the tensorflow/models/research/ and slim directories should be appended to PYTHONPATH. This can be done by running the following from tensorflow/models/research/:
# From tensorflow/models/research/
export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:`pwd`:`pwd`/slim
Note: This command needs to run from every new terminal you start. If you wish to avoid running this manually, you can add it as a new line to the end of your ~/.bashrc file, replacing `pwd` with the absolute path of tensorflow/models/research on your system.
You can test that you have correctly installed the Tensorflow Object Detection
API by running the following command:
python object_detection/builders/model_builder_test.py