ESPCN (Efficient Sub-Pixel CNN)

Introduction

ESPCN (Efficient Sub-Pixel CNN), proposed by Shi, 2016 is a model that reconstructs a high-resolution version of an image given a low-resolution version. It leverages efficient "sub-pixel convolution" layers, which learns an array of image upscaling filters.
In this code example, we will implement the model from the paper and train it on a small dataset, BSDS500.

Setup

import tensorflow as tf

import os
import math
import numpy as np

from tensorflow import keras
from tensorflow.keras import layers
from keras.preprocessing.image import load_img
from keras.preprocessing.image import array_to_img
from keras.preprocessing.image import img_to_array
from keras.preprocessing import image_dataset_from_directory

from IPython.display import display

Load data: BSDS500 dataset

Download dataset

We use the built-in keras.utils.get_file utility to retrieve the dataset.

dataset_url = "http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Research/Projects/CS/vision/grouping/BSR/BSR_bsds500.tgz"
data_dir = keras.utils.get_file(origin=dataset_url, fname="BSR", untar=True)
root_dir = os.path.join(data_dir, "BSDS500/data")

We create training and validation datasets via image_dataset_from_directory.

crop_size = 300
upscale_factor = 3
input_size = crop_size // upscale_factor
batch_size = 4

train_ds = image_dataset_from_directory(
    root_dir,
    batch_size=batch_size,
    image_size=(crop_size, crop_size),
    validation_split=0.2,
    subset="training",
    seed=1337,
    label_mode=None,
)

valid_ds = image_dataset_from_directory(
    root_dir,
    batch_size=batch_size,
    image_size=(crop_size, crop_size),
    validation_split=0.2,
    subset="validation",
    seed=1337,
    label_mode=None,
)

We rescale the images to take values in the range [0, 1].

def scaling(input_image):
    input_image = input_image / 255.0
    return input_image


# Scale from (0, 255) to (0, 1)
train_ds = train_ds.map(scaling)
valid_ds = valid_ds.map(scaling)

Let's visualize a few sample images:

for batch in train_ds.take(1):
    for img in batch:
        display(array_to_img(img))

We prepare a dataset of test image paths that we will use for visual evaluation at the end of this example.
 

dataset = os.path.join(root_dir, "images")
test_path = os.path.join(dataset, "test")

test_img_paths = sorted(
    [
        os.path.join(test_path, fname)
        for fname in os.listdir(test_path)
        if fname.endswith(".jpg")
    ]
)

Crop and resize images

Let's process image data. First, we convert our images from the RGB color space to the YUV colour space.
For the input data (low-resolution images), we crop the image, retrieve the y channel (luninance), and resize it with the area method(use BICUBIC if you use PIL). We only consider the luminance channel in the YUV color space because humans are more sensitive to luminance change.
For the target data (high-resolution images), we just crop the image and retrieve the y channel.
 

# Use TF Ops to process.
def process_input(input, input_size, upscale_factor):
    input = tf.image.rgb_to_yuv(input)
    last_dimension_axis = len(input.shape) - 1
    y, u, v = tf.split(input, 3, axis=last_dimension_axis)
    return tf.image.resize(y, [input_size, input_size], method="area")


def process_target(input):
    input = tf.image.rgb_to_yuv(input)
    last_dimension_axis = len(input.shape) - 1
    y, u, v = tf.split(input, 3, axis=last_dimension_axis)
    return y


train_ds = train_ds.map(
    lambda x: (process_input(x, input_size, upscale_factor), process_target(x))
)

valid_ds = valid_ds.map(
    lambda x: (process_input(x, input_size, upscale_factor), process_target(x))
)

Let's take a look at the input and target data.

for batch in train_ds.take(1):
    for img in batch[0]:
        display(array_to_img(img))
    for img in batch[1]:
        display(array_to_img(img))

Build a model

Compared to the paper, we add one more layer and we use the relu activation function instead of tanh. It achieves better performance even though we train the model for fewer epochs.

def get_model(upscale_factor=3, channels=1):
    conv_args = {
        "activation": "relu",
        "kernel_initializer": "Orthogonal",
        "padding": "same",
    }
    inputs = keras.Input(shape=(None, None, channels))
    x = layers.Conv2D(64, 5, **conv_args)(inputs)
    x = layers.Conv2D(64, 3, **conv_args)(x)
    x = layers.Conv2D(32, 3, **conv_args)(x)
    x = layers.Conv2D(channels * (upscale_factor ** 2), 3, **conv_args)(x)
    outputs = tf.nn.depth_to_space(x, upscale_factor)

    return keras.Model(inputs, outputs)

Define utility functions

We need to define several utility functions to monitor our results:

plot_results to plot an save an image.
get_lowres_image to convert an image to its low-resolution version.
upscale_image to turn a low-resolution image to a high-resolution version reconstructed by the model. In this function, we use the y channel from the YUV color space as input to the model and then combine the output with the other channels to obtain an RGB image.
 

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from mpl_toolkits.axes_grid1.inset_locator import zoomed_inset_axes
from mpl_toolkits.axes_grid1.inset_locator import mark_inset
import PIL

def plot_results(img, prefix, title):
    """Plot the result with zoom-in area."""
    img_array = img_to_array(img)
    img_array = img_array.astype("float32") / 255.0

    # Create a new figure with a default 111 subplot.
    fig, ax = plt.subplots()
    im = ax.imshow(img_array[::-1], origin="lower")

    plt.title(title)
    # zoom-factor: 2.0, location: upper-left
    axins = zoomed_inset_axes(ax, 2, loc=2)
    axins.imshow(img_array[::-1], origin="lower")

    # Specify the limits.
    x1, x2, y1, y2 = 200, 300, 100, 200
    # Apply the x-limits.
    axins.set_xlim(x1, x2)
    # Apply the y-limits.
    axins.set_ylim(y1, y2)

    plt.yticks(visible=False)
    plt.xticks(visible=False)

    # Make the line.
    mark_inset(ax, axins, loc1=1, loc2=3, fc="none", ec="blue")
    plt.savefig(str(prefix) + "-" + title + ".png")
    plt.show()

def get_lowres_image(img, upscale_factor):
    """Return low-resolution image to use as model input."""
    return img.resize(
        (img.size[0] // upscale_factor, img.size[1] // upscale_factor),
        PIL.Image.BICUBIC,
    )


def upscale_image(model, img):
    """Predict the result based on input image and restore the image as RGB."""
    ycbcr = img.convert("YCbCr")
    y, cb, cr = ycbcr.split()
    y = img_to_array(y)
    y = y.astype("float32") / 255.0

    input = np.expand_dims(y, axis=0)
    out = model.predict(input)

    out_img_y = out[0]
    out_img_y *= 255.0

    # Restore the image in RGB color space.
    out_img_y = out_img_y.clip(0, 255)
    out_img_y = out_img_y.reshape((np.shape(out_img_y)[0], np.shape(out_img_y)[1]))
    out_img_y = PIL.Image.fromarray(np.uint8(out_img_y), mode="L")
    out_img_cb = cb.resize(out_img_y.size, PIL.Image.BICUBIC)
    out_img_cr = cr.resize(out_img_y.size, PIL.Image.BICUBIC)
    out_img = PIL.Image.merge("YCbCr", (out_img_y, out_img_cb,out_img_cr)).convert(
        "RGB")
    return out_img

Define callbacks to monitor training

The ESPCNCallback object will compute and display the PSNR metric. This is the main metric we use to evaluate super-resolution performance.

class ESPCNCallback(keras.callbacks.Callback):
    def __init__(self):
        super(ESPCNCallback, self).__init__()
        self.test_img = get_lowres_image(load_img(test_img_paths[0]), upscale_factor)

    # Store PSNR value in each epoch.
    def on_epoch_begin(self, epoch, logs=None):
        self.psnr = []

    def on_epoch_end(self, epoch, logs=None):
        print("Mean PSNR for epoch: %.2f" % (np.mean(self.psnr)))
        prediction = upscale_image(self.model, self.test_img)
        plot_results(prediction, "epoch-" + str(epoch), "prediction")

    def on_test_batch_end(self, batch, logs=None):
        self.psnr.append(10 * math.log10(1 / logs["loss"]))

Define ModelCheckpoint and EarlyStopping callbacks.

early_stopping_callback = keras.callbacks.EarlyStopping(monitor="loss", patience=10)

checkpoint_filepath = "/tmp/checkpoint"

model_checkpoint_callback = keras.callbacks.ModelCheckpoint(
    filepath=checkpoint_filepath,
    save_weights_only=True,
    monitor="loss",
    mode="min",
    save_best_only=True,
)

model = get_model(upscale_factor=upscale_factor, channels=1)
model.summary()

callbacks = [ESPCNCallback(), early_stopping_callback, model_checkpoint_callback]
loss_fn = keras.losses.MeanSquaredError()
optimizer = keras.optimizers.Adam(learning_rate=0.001)

Train the model

epochs = 50

model.compile(
    optimizer=optimizer, loss=loss_fn,
)

model.fit(
    train_ds, epochs=epochs, callbacks=callbacks, validation_data=valid_ds, verbose=2
)

# The model weights (that are considered the best) are loaded into the model.
model.load_weights(checkpoint_filepath)

Run model prediction and plot the results

Let's compute the reconstructed version of a few images and save the results.

total_bicubic_psnr = 0.0
total_test_psnr = 0.0

for index, test_img_path in enumerate(test_img_paths[50:60]):
    img = load_img(test_img_path)
    lowres_input = get_lowres_image(img, upscale_factor)
    w = lowres_input.size[0] * upscale_factor
    h = lowres_input.size[1] * upscale_factor
    highres_img = img.resize((w, h))
    prediction = upscale_image(model, lowres_input)
    lowres_img = lowres_input.resize((w, h))
    lowres_img_arr = img_to_array(lowres_img)
    highres_img_arr = img_to_array(highres_img)
    predict_img_arr = img_to_array(prediction)
    bicubic_psnr = tf.image.psnr(lowres_img_arr, highres_img_arr, max_val=255)
    test_psnr = tf.image.psnr(predict_img_arr, highres_img_arr, max_val=255)

    total_bicubic_psnr += bicubic_psnr
    total_test_psnr += test_psnr

    print(
        "PSNR of low resolution image and high resolution image is %.4f" % bicubic_psnr
    )
    print("PSNR of predict and high resolution is %.4f" % test_psnr)
    plot_results(lowres_img, index, "lowres")
    plot_results(highres_img, index, "highres")
    plot_results(prediction, index, "prediction")

print("Avg. PSNR of lowres images is %.4f" % (total_bicubic_psnr / 10))
print("Avg. PSNR of reconstructions is %.4f" % (total_test_psnr / 10))