mmpretrain/docs/en/notes/pretrain_custom_dataset.md

# How to Pretrain with Custom Dataset

In this tutorial, we provide a practice example and some tips on how to train on your own dataset.

In MMPretrain, We support the `CustomDataset` (similar to the `ImageFolder` in `torchvision`),  which is able to read the images within the specified folder directly. You only need to prepare the path information of the custom dataset and edit the config.

## Step-1: Prepare your dataset

Prepare your dataset following [Prepare Dataset](../user_guides/dataset_prepare.md).
And the root folder of the dataset can be like `data/custom_dataset/`.

Here, we assume you want to do unsupervised training, and use the sub-folder format `CustomDataset` to
organize your dataset as:

```text
data/custom_dataset/
├── sample1.png
├── sample2.png
├── sample3.png
├── sample4.png
└── ...
```

## Step-2: Choose one config as template

Here, we would like to use `configs/mae/mae_vit-base-p16_8xb512-amp-coslr-300e_in1k.py` as the example. We
first copy this config file to the same folder and rename it as
`mae_vit-base-p16_8xb512-amp-coslr-300e_custom.py`.

```{tip}
As a convention, the last field of the config name is the dataset, e.g.,`in1k` for ImageNet dataset, `coco` for COCO dataset
```

The content of this config is:

```python
_base_ = [
    '../_base_/models/mae_vit-base-p16.py',
    '../_base_/datasets/imagenet_bs512_mae.py',
    '../_base_/default_runtime.py',
]

# optimizer wrapper
optim_wrapper = dict(
    type='AmpOptimWrapper',
    loss_scale='dynamic',
    optimizer=dict(
        type='AdamW',
        lr=1.5e-4 * 4096 / 256,
        betas=(0.9, 0.95),
        weight_decay=0.05),
    paramwise_cfg=dict(
        custom_keys={
            'ln': dict(decay_mult=0.0),
            'bias': dict(decay_mult=0.0),
            'pos_embed': dict(decay_mult=0.),
            'mask_token': dict(decay_mult=0.),
            'cls_token': dict(decay_mult=0.)
        }))

# learning rate scheduler
param_scheduler = [
    dict(
        type='LinearLR',
        start_factor=0.0001,
        by_epoch=True,
        begin=0,
        end=40,
        convert_to_iter_based=True),
    dict(
        type='CosineAnnealingLR',
        T_max=260,
        by_epoch=True,
        begin=40,
        end=300,
        convert_to_iter_based=True)
]

# runtime settings
train_cfg = dict(type='EpochBasedTrainLoop', max_epochs=300)
default_hooks = dict(
    # only keeps the latest 3 checkpoints
    checkpoint=dict(type='CheckpointHook', interval=1, max_keep_ckpts=3))

randomness = dict(seed=0, diff_rank_seed=True)

# auto resume
resume = True

# NOTE: `auto_scale_lr` is for automatically scaling LR
# based on the actual training batch size.
auto_scale_lr = dict(base_batch_size=4096)
```

## Step-3: Edit the dataset related config

- Override the `type` of dataset settings as `'CustomDataset'`
- Override the `data_root` of dataset settings as `data/custom_dataset`.
- Override the `ann_file` of dataset settings as an empty string since we assume you are using the sub-folder
  format `CustomDataset`.
- Override the `data_prefix` of dataset settings as an empty string since we are using the whole dataset under
  the `data_root`, and you don't need to split samples into different subset and set the `data_prefix`.

The modified config will be like:

```python
_base_ = [
    '../_base_/models/mae_vit-base-p16.py',
    '../_base_/datasets/imagenet_bs512_mae.py',
    '../_base_/default_runtime.py',
]

# >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Override dataset settings here >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
train_dataloader = dict(
    dataset=dict(
        type='CustomDataset',
        data_root='data/custom_dataset/',
        ann_file='',       # We assume you are using the sub-folder format without ann_file
        data_prefix='',    # The `data_root` is the data_prefix directly.
        with_label=False,
    )
)
# <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

# optimizer wrapper
optim_wrapper = dict(
    type='AmpOptimWrapper',
    loss_scale='dynamic',
    optimizer=dict(
        type='AdamW',
        lr=1.5e-4 * 4096 / 256,
        betas=(0.9, 0.95),
        weight_decay=0.05),
    paramwise_cfg=dict(
        custom_keys={
            'ln': dict(decay_mult=0.0),
            'bias': dict(decay_mult=0.0),
            'pos_embed': dict(decay_mult=0.),
            'mask_token': dict(decay_mult=0.),
            'cls_token': dict(decay_mult=0.)
        }))

# learning rate scheduler
param_scheduler = [
    dict(
        type='LinearLR',
        start_factor=0.0001,
        by_epoch=True,
        begin=0,
        end=40,
        convert_to_iter_based=True),
    dict(
        type='CosineAnnealingLR',
        T_max=260,
        by_epoch=True,
        begin=40,
        end=300,
        convert_to_iter_based=True)
]

# runtime settings
train_cfg = dict(type='EpochBasedTrainLoop', max_epochs=300)
default_hooks = dict(
    # only keeps the latest 3 checkpoints
    checkpoint=dict(type='CheckpointHook', interval=1, max_keep_ckpts=3))

randomness = dict(seed=0, diff_rank_seed=True)

# auto resume
resume = True

# NOTE: `auto_scale_lr` is for automatically scaling LR
# based on the actual training batch size.
auto_scale_lr = dict(base_batch_size=4096)
```

By using the edited config file, you are able to train a self-supervised model with MAE algorithm on the custom dataset.

## Another example: Train MAE on COCO Dataset

```{note}
You need to install MMDetection to use the `mmdet.CocoDataset` follow this [documentation](https://github.com/open-mmlab/mmdetection/blob/3.x/docs/en/get_started.md)
```

Follow the aforementioned idea, we also present an example of how to train MAE on COCO dataset.  The edited file will be like this:

```python
_base_ = [
    '../_base_/models/mae_vit-base-p16.py',
    '../_base_/datasets/imagenet_mae.py',
    '../_base_/default_runtime.py',
]

# >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Override dataset settings here >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
train_dataloader = dict(
    dataset=dict(
        type='mmdet.CocoDataset',
        data_root='data/coco/',
        ann_file='annotations/instances_train2017.json',  # Only for loading images, and the labels won't be used.
        data_prefix=dict(img='train2017/'),
    )
)
# <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

# optimizer wrapper
optim_wrapper = dict(
    type='AmpOptimWrapper',
    loss_scale='dynamic',
    optimizer=dict(
        type='AdamW',
        lr=1.5e-4 * 4096 / 256,
        betas=(0.9, 0.95),
        weight_decay=0.05),
    paramwise_cfg=dict(
        custom_keys={
            'ln': dict(decay_mult=0.0),
            'bias': dict(decay_mult=0.0),
            'pos_embed': dict(decay_mult=0.),
            'mask_token': dict(decay_mult=0.),
            'cls_token': dict(decay_mult=0.)
        }))

# learning rate scheduler
param_scheduler = [
    dict(
        type='LinearLR',
        start_factor=0.0001,
        by_epoch=True,
        begin=0,
        end=40,
        convert_to_iter_based=True),
    dict(
        type='CosineAnnealingLR',
        T_max=260,
        by_epoch=True,
        begin=40,
        end=300,
        convert_to_iter_based=True)
]

# runtime settings
train_cfg = dict(type='EpochBasedTrainLoop', max_epochs=300)
default_hooks = dict(
    # only keeps the latest 3 checkpoints
    checkpoint=dict(type='CheckpointHook', interval=1, max_keep_ckpts=3))

randomness = dict(seed=0, diff_rank_seed=True)

# auto resume
resume = True

# NOTE: `auto_scale_lr` is for automatically scaling LR
# based on the actual training batch size.
auto_scale_lr = dict(base_batch_size=4096)
```