Machine Learning in Java - Second Edition

Deep convolutional networks

A network structure that recently achieved very good results at image recognition benchmarks is the convolutional neural network (CNN) or ConvNet. CNNs are a type of feedforward neural network that are structured in such a way that it emulates the behavior of the visual cortex, exploiting 2D structures of an input image, that is, patterns that exhibit spatially local correlation. It works on the basic principles of how the brain recalls or remembers images. We, as humans, remember images on the basis of features only. Given the features, our brain will start forming the image itself. In computers, consider the following diagram, which shows how a feature is detected:

In the same way, many features are detected ...