# Introduction to Keras for engineers

## Introduction

Keras 3 is a deep learning framework works with TensorFlow, JAX, and PyTorch interchangeably. This notebook will walk you through key Keras 3 workflows.

Let’s start by installing Keras 3:

    install.packages("keras3")
    keras3::install_keras()

## Setup

We’re going to be using the tensorflow backend here – but you can edit the string below to `"jax"` or `"torch"` and hit “Restart runtime”, and the whole notebook will run just the same! This entire guide is backend-agnostic.

    library(tensorflow, exclude = c("shape", "set_random_seed"))
    library(keras3)

    # Note that you must configure the backend
    # before calling any other keras functions.
    # The backend cannot be changed once the
    # package is imported.
    use_backend("tensorflow")

## A first example: A MNIST convnet

Let’s start with the Hello World of ML: training a convnet to classify MNIST digits.

Here’s the data:

    # Load the data and split it between train and test sets
    c(c(x_train, y_train), c(x_test, y_test)) %<-% keras3::dataset_mnist()

    # Scale images to the [0, 1] range
    x_train <- x_train / 255
    x_test <- x_test / 255

    # Make sure images have shape (28, 28, 1)
    x_train <- array_reshape(x_train, c(-1, 28, 28, 1))
    x_test <- array_reshape(x_test, c(-1, 28, 28, 1))

    dim(x_train)

    ## [1] 60000    28    28     1

    dim(x_test)

    ## [1] 10000    28    28     1

Here’s our model.

Different model-building options that Keras offers include:

- The Sequential API (what we use below)
- The Functional API (most typical)
- Writing your own models yourself via subclassing (for advanced use cases)

    # Model parameters
    num_classes <- 10
    input_shape <- c(28, 28, 1)

    model <- keras_model_sequential(input_shape = input_shape)
    model |>
      layer_conv_2d(filters = 64, kernel_size = c(3, 3), activation = "relu") |>
      layer_conv_2d(filters = 64, kernel_size = c(3, 3), activation = "relu") |>
      layer_max_pooling_2d(pool_size = c(2, 2)) |>
      layer_conv_2d(filters = 128, kernel_size = c(3, 3), activation = "relu") |>
      layer_conv_2d(filters = 128, kernel_size = c(3, 3), activation = "relu") |>
      layer_global_average_pooling_2d() |>
      layer_dropout(rate = 0.5) |>
      layer_dense(units = num_classes, activation = "softmax")

Here’s our model summary:

    summary(model)

    ## [1mModel: "sequential"[0m
    ## ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
    ## ┃[1m [0m[1mLayer (type)                   [0m[1m [0m┃[1m [0m[1mOutput Shape          [0m[1m [0m┃[1m [0m[1m      Param #[0m[1m [0m┃
    ## ┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
    ## │ conv2d ([38;5;33mConv2D[0m)                 │ ([38;5;45mNone[0m, [38;5;34m26[0m, [38;5;34m26[0m, [38;5;34m64[0m)     │           [38;5;34m640[0m │
    ## ├─────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────┼───────────────┤
    ## │ conv2d_1 ([38;5;33mConv2D[0m)               │ ([38;5;45mNone[0m, [38;5;34m24[0m, [38;5;34m24[0m, [38;5;34m64[0m)     │        [38;5;34m36,928[0m │
    ## ├─────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────┼───────────────┤
    ## │ max_pooling2d ([38;5;33mMaxPooling2D[0m)    │ ([38;5;45mNone[0m, [38;5;34m12[0m, [38;5;34m12[0m, [38;5;34m64[0m)     │             [38;5;34m0[0m │
    ## ├─────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────┼───────────────┤
    ## │ conv2d_2 ([38;5;33mConv2D[0m)               │ ([38;5;45mNone[0m, [38;5;34m10[0m, [38;5;34m10[0m, [38;5;34m128[0m)    │        [38;5;34m73,856[0m │
    ## ├─────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────┼───────────────┤
    ## │ conv2d_3 ([38;5;33mConv2D[0m)               │ ([38;5;45mNone[0m, [38;5;34m8[0m, [38;5;34m8[0m, [38;5;34m128[0m)      │       [38;5;34m147,584[0m │
    ## ├─────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────┼───────────────┤
    ## │ global_average_pooling2d        │ ([38;5;45mNone[0m, [38;5;34m128[0m)            │             [38;5;34m0[0m │
    ## │ ([38;5;33mGlobalAveragePooling2D[0m)        │                        │               │
    ## ├─────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────┼───────────────┤
    ## │ dropout ([38;5;33mDropout[0m)               │ ([38;5;45mNone[0m, [38;5;34m128[0m)            │             [38;5;34m0[0m │
    ## ├─────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────┼───────────────┤
    ## │ dense ([38;5;33mDense[0m)                   │ ([38;5;45mNone[0m, [38;5;34m10[0m)             │         [38;5;34m1,290[0m │
    ## └─────────────────────────────────┴────────────────────────┴───────────────┘
    ## [1m Total params: [0m[38;5;34m260,298[0m (1016.79 KB)
    ## [1m Trainable params: [0m[38;5;34m260,298[0m (1016.79 KB)
    ## [1m Non-trainable params: [0m[38;5;34m0[0m (0.00 B)

We use the `compile()` method to specify the optimizer, loss function, and the metrics to monitor. Note that with the JAX and TensorFlow backends, XLA compilation is turned on by default.

    model |> compile(
      optimizer = "adam",
      loss = "sparse_categorical_crossentropy",
      metrics = list(
        metric_sparse_categorical_accuracy(name = "acc")
      )
    )

Let’s train and evaluate the model. We’ll set aside a validation split of 15% of the data during training to monitor generalization on unseen data.

    batch_size <- 128
    epochs <- 10

    callbacks <- list(
      callback_model_checkpoint(filepath="model_at_epoch_{epoch}.keras"),
      callback_early_stopping(monitor="val_loss", patience=2)
    )

    model |> fit(
      x_train, y_train,
      batch_size = batch_size,
      epochs = epochs,
      validation_split = 0.15,
      callbacks = callbacks
    )

    ## Epoch 1/10
    ## 399/399 - 7s - 17ms/step - acc: 0.7472 - loss: 0.7457 - val_acc: 0.9647 - val_loss: 0.1205
    ## Epoch 2/10
    ## 399/399 - 2s - 6ms/step - acc: 0.9377 - loss: 0.2080 - val_acc: 0.9770 - val_loss: 0.0784
    ## Epoch 3/10
    ## 399/399 - 2s - 6ms/step - acc: 0.9563 - loss: 0.1489 - val_acc: 0.9820 - val_loss: 0.0623
    ## Epoch 4/10
    ## 399/399 - 2s - 6ms/step - acc: 0.9645 - loss: 0.1190 - val_acc: 0.9858 - val_loss: 0.0492
    ## Epoch 5/10
    ## 399/399 - 2s - 6ms/step - acc: 0.9710 - loss: 0.1007 - val_acc: 0.9871 - val_loss: 0.0449
    ## Epoch 6/10
    ## 399/399 - 2s - 6ms/step - acc: 0.9750 - loss: 0.0873 - val_acc: 0.9881 - val_loss: 0.0395
    ## Epoch 7/10
    ## 399/399 - 2s - 6ms/step - acc: 0.9765 - loss: 0.0791 - val_acc: 0.9893 - val_loss: 0.0388
    ## Epoch 8/10
    ## 399/399 - 2s - 6ms/step - acc: 0.9789 - loss: 0.0693 - val_acc: 0.9877 - val_loss: 0.0420
    ## Epoch 9/10
    ## 399/399 - 2s - 6ms/step - acc: 0.9802 - loss: 0.0666 - val_acc: 0.9901 - val_loss: 0.0369
    ## Epoch 10/10
    ## 399/399 - 2s - 6ms/step - acc: 0.9823 - loss: 0.0589 - val_acc: 0.9911 - val_loss: 0.0339

    score <- model |> evaluate(x_test, y_test, verbose = 0)

During training, we were saving a model at the end of each epoch. You can also save the model in its latest state like this:

    save_model(model, "final_model.keras", overwrite=TRUE)

And reload it like this:

    model <- load_model("final_model.keras")

Next, you can query predictions of class probabilities with `predict()`:

    predictions <- model |> predict(x_test)

    ## 313/313 - 1s - 2ms/step

    dim(predictions)

    ## [1] 10000    10

That’s it for the basics!

## Writing cross-framework custom components

Keras enables you to write custom Layers, Models, Metrics, Losses, and Optimizers that work across TensorFlow, JAX, and PyTorch with the same codebase. Let’s take a look at custom layers first.

The `op_` namespace contains:

- An implementation of the NumPy API, e.g. `op_stack` or `op_matmul`.
- A set of neural network specific ops that are absent from NumPy, such as `op_conv` or `op_binary_crossentropy`.

Let’s make a custom `Dense` layer that works with all backends:

    layer_my_dense <- Layer(
      classname = "MyDense",
      initialize = function(units, activation = NULL, name = NULL, ...) {
        super$initialize(name = name, ...)
        self$units <- units
        self$activation <- activation
      },
      build = function(input_shape) {
        input_dim <- tail(input_shape, 1)
        self$w <- self$add_weight(
          shape = shape(input_dim, self$units),
          initializer = initializer_glorot_normal(),
          name = "kernel",
          trainable = TRUE
        )
        self$b <- self$add_weight(
          shape = shape(self$units),
          initializer = initializer_zeros(),
          name = "bias",
          trainable = TRUE
        )
      },
      call = function(inputs) {
        # Use Keras ops to create backend-agnostic layers/metrics/etc.
        x <- op_matmul(inputs, self$w) + self$b
        if (!is.null(self$activation))
          x <- self$activation(x)
        x
      }
    )

Next, let’s make a custom `Dropout` layer that relies on the `random_*` namespace:

    layer_my_dropout <- Layer(
      "MyDropout",
      initialize = function(rate, name = NULL, seed = NULL, ...) {
        super$initialize(name = name)
        self$rate <- rate
        # Use seed_generator for managing RNG state.
        # It is a state element and its seed variable is
        # tracked as part of `layer$variables`.
        self$seed_generator <- random_seed_generator(seed)
      },
      call = function(inputs) {
        # Use `keras3::random_*` for random ops.
        random_dropout(inputs, self$rate, seed = self$seed_generator)
      }
    )

Next, let’s write a custom subclassed model that uses our two custom layers:

    MyModel <- Model(
      "MyModel",
      initialize = function(num_classes, ...) {
        super$initialize(...)
        self$conv_base <-
          keras_model_sequential() |>
          layer_conv_2d(64, kernel_size = c(3, 3), activation = "relu") |>
          layer_conv_2d(64, kernel_size = c(3, 3), activation = "relu") |>
          layer_max_pooling_2d(pool_size = c(2, 2)) |>
          layer_conv_2d(128, kernel_size = c(3, 3), activation = "relu") |>
          layer_conv_2d(128, kernel_size = c(3, 3), activation = "relu") |>
          layer_global_average_pooling_2d()

        self$dp <- layer_my_dropout(rate = 0.5)
        self$dense <- layer_my_dense(units = num_classes,
                                     activation = activation_softmax)
      },
      call = function(inputs) {
        inputs |>
          self$conv_base() |>
          self$dp() |>
          self$dense()
      }
    )

Let’s compile it and fit it:

    model <- MyModel(num_classes = 10)
    model |> compile(
      loss = loss_sparse_categorical_crossentropy(),
      optimizer = optimizer_adam(learning_rate = 1e-3),
      metrics = list(
        metric_sparse_categorical_accuracy(name = "acc")
      )
    )

    model |> fit(
      x_train, y_train,
      batch_size = batch_size,
      epochs = 1, # For speed
      validation_split = 0.15
    )

    ## 399/399 - 6s - 16ms/step - acc: 0.7349 - loss: 0.7742 - val_acc: 0.9261 - val_loss: 0.2408

## Training models on arbitrary data sources

All Keras models can be trained and evaluated on a wide variety of data sources, independently of the backend you’re using. This includes:

- Arrays
- Dataframes
- TensorFlow `tf_dataset` objects
- PyTorch `DataLoader` objects
- Keras `PyDataset` objects

They all work whether you’re using TensorFlow, JAX, or PyTorch as your Keras backend.

Let’s try this out with `tf_dataset`:

    library(tfdatasets, exclude = "shape")

    train_dataset <- list(x_train, y_train) |>
      tensor_slices_dataset() |>
      dataset_batch(batch_size) |>
      dataset_prefetch(buffer_size = tf$data$AUTOTUNE)

    test_dataset <- list(x_test, y_test) |>
      tensor_slices_dataset() |>
      dataset_batch(batch_size) |>
      dataset_prefetch(buffer_size = tf$data$AUTOTUNE)

    model <- MyModel(num_classes = 10)
    model |> compile(
      loss = loss_sparse_categorical_crossentropy(),
      optimizer = optimizer_adam(learning_rate = 1e-3),
      metrics = list(
        metric_sparse_categorical_accuracy(name = "acc")
      )
    )

    model |> fit(train_dataset, epochs = 1, validation_data = test_dataset)

    ## 469/469 - 7s - 16ms/step - acc: 0.7505 - loss: 0.7455 - val_acc: 0.9088 - val_loss: 0.3040

## Further reading

This concludes our short overview of the new multi-backend capabilities of Keras 3. Next, you can learn about:

### How to customize what happens in `fit()`

Want to implement a non-standard training algorithm yourself but still want to benefit from the power and usability of `fit()`? It’s easy to customize `fit()` to support arbitrary use cases:

- Customizing what happens in `fit()` with TensorFlow

## How to write custom training loops

- Writing a training loop from scratch in TensorFlow

## How to distribute training

- Guide to distributed training with TensorFlow

Enjoy the library! 🚀