Mean Average Precise理解及源码分析

Mean Average Precise
也叫（mAP）,“ to evaluate the ranked retrieval results”。
这个评价指标用于对信息检索，推荐算法的评价。最近在做目标检测的项目，mAP也用到了检测结果的好坏的评价上。与一般precise，recall，f评价体系不同的是，mAP将“顺序”的因素考虑在内。希望在positive结果中，tp的部分先出现。

参考了不少资料发现以下两组资料最为详尽，足够答疑解惑。同时结合代码分析mAP的计算过程。

源地址1：http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_9db078090102whzw.html
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源地址2（斯坦福NLP实验室资料）：https://nlp.stanford.edu/IR-book/html/htmledition/evaluation-of-ranked-retrieval-results-1.html

代码来源： py-faster-rcnn /lib/dataSet/voc_eval.py AP计算部分源码
# tp = [1,0,1,0,0,0,...]  size(tp) = all positive
# fp = [0,1,0,1,1,1,...]
# compute precision recall
fp = np.cumsum(fp)      # fp = [0,1,1,2,3,4,...]
tp = np.cumsum(tp)      # tp = [1,1,2,2,2,2,...]
rec = tp / float(npos)  # npos(number of pos)，此时rec为累计的rec
"""
# recall的计算：
假定一次输出x（positive）个结果，真正相关的结果数为r（true/relevant）,当前计算的位置为i；
i为fp，则deta_rec = 0; 
i为tp，
(1)当 x>=r ,deta_rec = 1/r;
(2)else，deta_rec = 1/x;
上述例子中，deta_rec 取 1/x
"""

# avoid divide by zero in case the first detection matches a difficult ground truth
# 所有的运算都不考虑difficult的样本
prec = tp / np.maximum(tp + fp, np.finfo(np.float64).eps)
ap = voc_ap(rec, prec, use_07_metric)

# 计算 Everage Precise
def voc_ap(rec, prec, use_07_metric=False):
    """ ap = voc_ap(rec, prec, [use_07_metric])
    Compute VOC AP given precision and recall.
    If use_07_metric is true, uses the
    VOC 07 11 point method (default:False).
    """
    # voc07版本
    if use_07_metric:
        # 11 point metric
        ap = 0.
        # 将recall分成11等份 (0-0.1),(0.1-0.2),...
        for t in np.arange(0., 1.1, 0.1):
            if np.sum(rec >= t) == 0:
                p = 0
            else:
                # 计算该范围对应的precise
                p = np.max(prec[rec >= t])
            # deta_precise = p; deta_recall = 1/11
            ap = ap + p / 11.

    # voc07以上版本
    else:
        # correct AP calculation
        # first append sentinel values at the end
        mrec = np.concatenate(([0.], rec, [1.]))
        mpre = np.concatenate(([0.], prec, [0.]))

        # compute the precision envelope
        """
        目的是找出precise的包络。参考“源2”，Figure8.2 中红线
        """
        for i in range(mpre.size - 1, 0, -1):
            mpre[i - 1] = np.maximum(mpre[i - 1], mpre[i])

        # to calculate area under PR curve, look for points
        # where X axis (recall) changes value
        """
        找出recall变化的位置
        """
        i = np.where(mrec[1:] != mrec[:-1])[0]

        # and sum (\Delta recall) * prec
        ap = np.sum((mrec[i + 1] - mrec[i]) * mpre[i + 1])
    return ap