How To Build a Deep Learning Model to Predict Employee Retention Using Keras and TensorFlow

Introduction

Keras is a neural network API that is written in Python. It runs on top of TensorFlow, CNTK, or Theano. It is a high-level abstraction of these deep learning frameworks and therefore makes experimentation faster and easier. Keras is modular, which means implementation is seamless as developers can quickly extend models by adding modules.

TensorFlow is an open-source software library for machine learning. It works efficiently with computation involving arrays; so it’s a great choice for the model you’ll build in this tutorial. Furthermore, TensorFlow allows for the execution of code on either CPU or GPU, which is a useful feature especially when you’re working with a massive dataset.

In this tutorial, you’ll build a deep learning model that will predict the probability of an employee leaving a company. Retaining the best employees is an important factor for most organizations. To build your model, you’ll use this dataset available at Kaggle, which has features that measure employee satisfaction in a company. To create this model, you’ll use the Keras sequential layer to build the different layers for the model.

Prerequisites

Before you begin this tutorial you’ll need the following:

An Anaconda development environment on your machine.
A Jupyter Notebook installation. Anaconda will install Jupyter Notebook for you during its installation. You can also follow this tutorial for a guide on how to navigate and use Jupyter Notebook.
Familiarity with Machine learning.

Step 1 — Data Pre-processing

Data Pre-processing is necessary to prepare your data in a manner that a deep learning model can accept. If there are categorical variables in your data, you have to convert them to numbers because the algorithm only accepts numerical figures. A categorical variable represents quantitive data represented by names. In this step, you’ll load in your dataset using pandas, which is a data manipulation Python library.

Before you begin data pre-processing, you’ll activate your environment and ensure you have all the necessary packages installed to your machine. It’s advantageous to use conda to install keras and tensorflow since it will handle the installation of any necessary dependencies for these packages, and ensure they are compatible with keras and tensorflow. In this way, using the Anaconda Python distribution is a good choice for data science related projects.

Move into the environment you created in the prerequisite tutorial:

$ conda activate my_env

Run the following command to install keras and tensorflow:

( my_env ) $ conda install tensorflow keras

Now, open Jupyter Notebook to get started. Jupyter Notebook is opened by typing the following command on your terminal:

( my_env ) $ jupyter notebook

Note: If you’re working from a remote server, you’ll need to use SSH tunneling to access your notebook. Please revisit step 2 of the prerequisite tutorial for detailed on instructions on setting up SSH tunneling. You can use the following command from your local machine to initiate your SSH tunnel:

$ ssh -L 8888:localhost:8888 your_username@your_server_ip

After accessing Jupyter Notebook, click on the anaconda3 file, and then click New at the top of the screen, and select Python 3 to load a new notebook.

Now, you’ll import the required modules for the project and then load the dataset in a notebook cell. You’ll load in the pandas module for manipulating your data and numpy for converting the data into numpyarrays. You’ll also convert all the columns that are in string format to numerical values for your computer to process.

Insert the following code into a notebook cell and then click Run:

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
df = pd.read_csv("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mwitiderrick/kerasDO/master/HR_comma_sep.csv")

You’ve imported numpy and pandas. You then used pandas to load in the dataset for the model.

You can get a glimpse at the dataset you’re working with by using head(). This is a useful function from pandas that allows you to view the first five records of your dataframe. Add the following code to a notebook cell and then run it:

df.head()

You’ll now proceed to convert the categorical columns to numbers. You do this by converting them to dummy variables. Dummy variables are usually ones and zeros that indicate the presence or absence of a categorical feature. In this kind of situation, you also avoid the dummy variable trap by dropping the first dummy.

Note: The dummy variable trap is a situation whereby two or more variables are highly correlated. This leads to your model performing poorly. You, therefore, drop one dummy variable to always remain with N-1 dummy variables. Any of the dummy variables can be dropped because there is no preference as long as you remain with N-1 dummy variables. An example of this is if you were to have an on/off switch. When you create the dummy variable you shall get two columns: an on column and an off column. You can drop one of the columns because if the switch isn’t on, then it is off.

Insert this code in the next notebook cell and execute it:

feats = ['department','salary']
df_final = pd.get_dummies(df,columns=feats,drop_first=True)

feats = ['department','salary'] defines the two columns for which you want to create dummy variables. pd.get_dummies(df,columns=feats,drop_first=True) will generate the numerical variables that your employee retention model requires. It does this by converting the feats that you define from categorical to numerical variables.

You’ve loaded in the dataset and converted the salary and department columns into a format the kerasdeep learning model can accept. In the next step, you will split the dataset into a training and testing set.

Step 2 — Separating Your Training and Testing Datasets

You’ll use <a href="https://scikit-learn.org/" target="_blank">scikit-learn</a> to split your dataset into a training and a testing set. This is necessary so you can use part of the employee data to train the model and a part of it to test its performance. Splitting a dataset in this way is a common practice when building deep learning models.

It is important to implement this split in the dataset so the model you build doesn’t have access to the testing data during the training process. This ensures that the model learns only from the training data, and you can then test its performance with the testing data. If you exposed your model to testing data during the training process then it would memorize the expected outcomes. Consequently, it would fail to give accurate predictions on data that it hasn’t seen.

You’ll start by importing the train_test_split module from the scikit-learn package. This is the module that will provide the splitting functionality. Insert this code in the next notebook cell and run:

from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split

With the train_test_split module imported, you’ll use the left column in your dataset to predict if an employee will leave the company. Therefore, it is essential that your deep learning model doesn’t come into contact with this column. Insert the following into a cell to drop the left column:

X = df_final.drop(['left'],axis=1).values
y = df_final['left'].values

Your deep learning model expects to get the data as arrays. Therefore you use <a href="http://www.numpy.org/" target="_blank">numpy</a> to convert the data to numpy arrays with the .values attribute.

You’re now ready to convert the dataset into a testing and training set. You’ll use 70% of the data for training and 30% for testing. The training ratio is more than the testing ratio because you’ll need to use most of the data for the training process. If desired, you can also experiment with a ratio of 80% for the training set and 20% for the testing set.

Now add this code to the next cell and run to split your training and testing data to the specified ratio:

X_train, X_test, y_train, y_test = train_test_split(X, y, test_size=0.3)

You have now converted the data into the type that Keras expects it to be in (numpy arrays), and your data is split into a training and testing set. You’ll pass this data to the keras model later in the tutorial. Beforehand you need to transform the data, which you’ll complete in the next step.

Step 3 — Transforming the Data

When building deep learning models it is usually good practice to scale your dataset in order to make the computations more efficient. In this step, you’ll scale the data using the StandardScaler; this will ensure that your dataset values have a mean of zero and a unit variable. This transforms the dataset to be normally distributed. You’ll use the scikit-learn StandardScaler to scale the features to be within the same range. This will transform the values to have a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1. This step is important because you’re comparing features that have different measurements; so it is typically required in machine learning.

To scale the training set and the test set, add this code to the notebook cell and run it:

from sklearn.preprocessing import StandardScaler
sc = StandardScaler()
X_train = sc.fit_transform(X_train)
X_test = sc.transform(X_test)

Here, you start by importing the StandardScaler and calling an instance of it. You then use its fit_transform method to scale the training and testing set.

You have scaled all your dataset features to be within the same range. You can start building the artificial neural network in the next step.

Step 4 — Building the Artificial Neural Network

Now you will use keras to build the deep learning model. To do this, you’ll import keras, which will use tensorflow as the backend by default. From keras, you’ll then import the Sequential module to initialize the artificial neural network. An artificial neural network is a computational model that is built using inspiration from the workings of the human brain. You’ll import the Dense module as well, which will add layers to your deep learning model.

When building a deep learning model you usually specify three layer types:

The input layer is the layer to which you’ll pass the features of your dataset. There is no computation that occurs in this layer. It serves to pass features to the hidden layers.
The hidden layers are usually the layers between the input layer and the output layer—and there can be more than one. These layers perform the computations and pass the information to the output layer.
The output layer represents the layer of your neural network that will give you the results after training your model. It is responsible for producing the output variables.

To import the Keras, Sequential, and Dense modules, run the following code in your notebook cell:

import keras
from keras.models import Sequential
from keras.layers import Dense

You’ll use Sequential to initialize a linear stack of layers. Since this is a classification problem, you’ll create a classifier variable. A classification problem is a task where you have labeled data and would like to make some predictions based on the labeled data. Add this code to your notebook to create a classifier variable:

classifier = Sequential()

You’ve used Sequential to initialize the classifier.

You can now start adding layers to your network. Run this code in your next cell:

classifier.add(Dense(9, kernel_initializer = "uniform",activation = "relu", input_dim=18))

You add layers using the .add() function on your classifier and specify some parameters:

The first parameter is the number of nodes that your network should have. The connection between different nodes is what forms the neural network. One of the strategies to determine the number of nodes is to take the average of the nodes in the input layer and the output layer.
The second parameter is the kernel_initializer. When you fit your deep learning model the weights will be initialized to numbers close to zero, but not zero. To achieve this you use the uniform distribution initializer. kernel_initializer is the function that initializes the weights.
The third parameter is the activation function. Your deep learning model will learn through this function. There are usually linear and non-linear activation functions. You use the <a href="https://keras.io/activations/" target="_blank">relu</a> activation function because it generalizes well on your data. Linear functions are not good for problems like these because they form a straight line.
The last parameter is input_dim, which represents the number of features in your dataset.

Now you’ll add the output layer that will give you the predictions:

classifier.add(Dense(1, kernel_initializer = "uniform",activation = "sigmoid"))

The output layer takes the following parameters:

The number of output nodes. You expect to get one output: if an employee leaves the company. Therefore you specify one output node.
For kernel_initializer you use the <a href="https://keras.io/activations/" target="_blank">sigmoid</a> activation function so that you can get the probability that an employee will leave. In the event that you were dealing with more than two categories, you would use the <a href="https://keras.io/activations/" target="_blank">softmax</a> activation function, which is a variant of the sigmoidactivation function.

Next, you’ll apply a gradient descent to the neural network. This is an optimization strategy that works to reduce errors during the training process. Gradient descent is how randomly assigned weights in a neural network are adjusted by reducing the cost function, which is a measure of how well a neural network performs based on the output expected from it.

The aim of a gradient descent is to get the point where the error is at its least. This is done by finding where the cost function is at its minimum, which is referred to as a local minimum. In gradient descent, you differentiate to find the slope at a specific point and find out if the slope is negative or positive—you’re descending into the minimum of the cost function. There are several types of optimization strategies, but you’ll use a popular one known as adam in this tutorial.

Add this code to your notebook cell and run it:

classifier.compile(optimizer= "adam",loss = "binary_crossentropy",metrics = ["accuracy"])

Applying gradient descent is done via the compile function that takes the following parameters:

optimizer is the gradient descent.
loss is a function that you’ll use in the gradient descent. Since this is a binary classification problem you use the binary_crossentropy loss function.
The last parameter is the metric that you’ll use to evaluate your model. In this case, you’d like to evaluate it based on its accuracy when making predictions.

You’re ready to fit your classifier to your dataset. Keras makes this possible via the .fit() method. To do this, insert the following code into your notebook and run it in order to fit the model to your dataset:

classifier.fit(X_train, y_train, batch_size = 10, epochs = 1)

The .fit() method takes a couple of parameters:

The first parameter is the training set with the features.
The second parameter is the column that you’re making the predictions on.
The batch_size represents the number of samples that will go through the neural network at each training round.
epochs represents the number of times that the dataset will be passed via the neural network. The more epochs the longer it will take to run your model, which also gives you better results.

You’ve created your deep learning model, compiled it, and fitted it to your dataset. You’re ready to make some predictions using the deep learning model. In the next step, you’ll start making predictions with the dataset that the model hasn’t yet seen.

Step 5 — Running Predictions on the Test Set

To start making predictions, you’ll use the testing dataset in the model that you’ve created. Keras enables you to make predictions by using the .predict() function.

Insert the following code in the next notebook cell to begin making predictions:

y_pred = classifier.predict(X_test)

Since you’ve already trained the classifier with the training set, this code will use the learning from the training process to make predictions on the test set. This will give you the probabilities of an employee leaving. You’ll work with a probability of 50% and above to indicate a high chance of the employee leaving the company.

Enter the following line of code in your notebook cell in order to set this threshold:

y_pred = (y_pred > 0.5)

You’ve created predictions using the predict method and set the threshold for determining if an employee is likely to leave. To evaluate how well the model performed on the predictions, you will next use a confusion matrix.

Step 6 — Checking the Confusion Matrix

In this step, you will use a confusion matrix to check the number of correct and incorrect predictions. A confusion matrix, also known as an error matrix, is a square matrix that reports the number of true positives(tp), false positives(fp), true negatives(tn), and false negatives(fn) of a classifier.

A true positive is an outcome where the model correctly predicts the positive class (also known as sensitivity or recall).
A true negative is an outcome where the model correctly predicts the negative class.
A false positive is an outcome where the model incorrectly predicts the positive class.
A false negative is an outcome where the model incorrectly predicts the negative class.

To achieve this you’ll use a confusion matrix that scikit-learn provides.

Insert this code in the next notebook cell to import the scikit-learn confusion matrix:

from sklearn.metrics import confusion_matrix
cm = confusion_matrix(y_test, y_pred)
cm

The confusion matrix output means that your deep learning model made 3305 + 375 correct predictions and 106 + 714 wrong predictions. You can calculate the accuracy with: (3305 + 375) / 4500. The total number of observations in your dataset is 4500. This gives you an accuracy of 81.7%. This is a very good accuracy rate since you can achieve at least 81% correct predictions from your model.

Output
array([[3305,  106],
       [ 714,  375]])

You’ve evaluated your model using the confusion matrix. Next, you’ll work on making a single prediction using the model that you have developed.

Step 7 — Making a Single Prediction

In this step you’ll make a single prediction given the details of one employee with your model. You will achieve this by predicting the probability of a single employee leaving the company. You’ll pass this employee’s features to the predict method. As you did earlier, you’ll scale the features as well and convert them to a numpy array.

To pass the employee’s features, run the following code in a cell:

new_pred = classifier.predict(sc.transform(np.array([[0.26,0.7 ,3., 238., 6., 0.,0.,0.,0., 0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,1.,0., 0.,1.]])))

These features represent the features of a single employee. As shown in the dataset in step 1, these features represent: satisfaction level, last evaluation, number of projects, and so on. As you did in step 3, you have to transform the features in a manner that the deep learning model can accept.

Add a threshold of 50% with the following code:

new_pred = (new_pred > 0.5)
new_pred

This threshold indicates that where the probability is above 50% an employee will leave the company.

You can see in your output that the employee won’t leave the company:

Output
array([[False]])

You might decide to set a lower or higher threshold for your model. For example, you can set the threshold to be 60%:

new_pred = (new_pred > 0.6)
new_pred

This new threshold still shows that the employee won’t leave the company:

Output
array([[False]])

In this step, you have seen how to make a single prediction given the features of a single employee. In the next step, you will work on improving the accuracy of your model.

Step 8 — Improving the Model Accuracy

If you train your model many times you’ll keep getting different results. The accuracies for each training have a high variance. In order to solve this problem, you’ll use K-fold cross-validation. Usually, K is set to 10. In this technique, the model is trained on the first 9 folds and tested on the last fold. This iteration continues until all folds have been used. Each of the iterations gives its own accuracy. The accuracy of the model becomes the average of all these accuracies.

keras enables you to implement K-fold cross-validation via the KerasClassifier wrapper. This wrapper is from scikit-learn cross-validation. You’ll start by importing the cross_val_score cross-validation function and the KerasClassifier. To do this, insert and run the following code in your notebook cell:

from keras.wrappers.scikit_learn import KerasClassifier
from sklearn.model_selection import cross_val_score

To create the function that you will pass to the KerasClassifier, add this code to the next cell:

def make_classifier():
    classifier = Sequential()
    classifier.add(Dense(9, kernel_initializer = "uniform", activation = "relu", input_dim=18))
    classifier.add(Dense(1, kernel_initializer = "uniform", activation = "sigmoid"))
    classifier.compile(optimizer= "adam",loss = "binary_crossentropy",metrics = ["accuracy"])
    return classifier

Here, you create a function that you’ll pass to the KerasClassifier—the function is one of the arguments that the classifier expects. The function is a wrapper of the neural network design that you used earlier. The passed parameters are also similar to the ones used earlier in the tutorial. In the function, you first initialize the classifier using Sequential(), you then use Dense to add the input and output layer. Finally, you compile the classifier and return it.

To pass the function you’ve built to the KerasClassifier, add this line of code to your notebook:

classifier = KerasClassifier(build_fn = make_classifier, batch_size=10, nb_epoch=1)

The KerasClassifier takes three arguments:

build_fn: the function with the neural network design
batch_size: the number of samples to be passed via the network in each iteration
nb_epoch: the number of epochs the network will run

Next, you apply the cross-validation using Scikit-learn’s cross_val_score. Add the following code to your notebook cell and run it:

accuracies = cross_val_score(estimator = classifier,X = X_train,y = y_train,cv = 10,n_jobs = -1)

This function will give you ten accuracies since you have specified the number of folds as 10. Therefore, you assign it to the accuracies variable and later use it to compute the mean accuracy. It takes the following arguments:

estimator: the classifier that you’ve just defined
X: the training set features
y: the value to be predicted in the training set
cv: the number of folds
n_jobs: the number of CPUs to use (specifying it as -1 will make use of all the available CPUs)

Now you have applied the cross-validation, you can compute the mean and variance of the accuracies. To achieve this, insert the following code into your notebook:

mean = accuracies.mean()
mean

In your output you’ll see that the mean is 83%:

Output
0.8343617910685696

To compute the variance of the accuracies, add this code to the next notebook cell:

variance = accuracies.var()
variance

You see that the variance is 0.00109. Since the variance is very low, it means that your model is performing very well.

Output
0.0010935021002275425

You’ve improved your model’s accuracy by using K-Fold cross-validation. In the next step, you’ll work on the overfitting problem.

Step 9 — Adding Dropout Regularization to Fight Over-Fitting

Predictive models are prone to a problem known as overfitting. This is a scenario whereby the model memorizes the results in the training set and isn’t able to generalize on data that it hasn’t seen. Typically you observe overfitting when you have a very high variance on accuracies. To help fight over-fitting in your model, you will add a layer to your model.

In neural networks, dropout regularization is the technique that fights overfitting by adding a Dropoutlayer in your neural network. It has a rate parameter that indicates the number of neurons that will deactivate at each iteration. The process of deactivating nerurons is usually random. In this case, you specify 0.1 as the rate meaning that 1% of the neurons will deactivate during the training process. The network design remains the same.

To add your Dropout layer, add the following code to the next cell:

from keras.layers import Dropout

classifier = Sequential()
classifier.add(Dense(9, kernel_initializer = "uniform", activation = "relu", input_dim=18))
classifier.add(Dropout(rate = 0.1))
classifier.add(Dense(1, kernel_initializer = "uniform", activation = "sigmoid"))
classifier.compile(optimizer= "adam",loss = "binary_crossentropy",metrics = ["accuracy"])

You have added a Dropout layer between the input and output layer. Having set a dropout rate of 0.1 means that during the training process 15 of the neurons will deactivate so that the classifier doesn’t overfit on the training set. After adding the Dropout and output layers you then compiled the classifier as you have done previously.

You worked to fight over-fitting in this step with a Dropout layer. Next, you’ll work on further improving the model by tuning the parameters you used while creating the model.

Step 10 — Hyperparameter Tuning

Grid search is a technique that you can use to experiment with different model parameters in order to obtain the ones that give you the best accuracy. The technique does this by trying different parameters and returning those that give the best results. You’ll use grid search to search for the best parameters for your deep learning model. This will help in improving model accuracy. scikit-learn provides the GridSearchCV function to enable this functionality. You will now proceed to modify the make_classifierfunction to try out different parameters.

Add this code to your notebook to modify the make_classifier function so you can test out different optimizer functions:

from sklearn.model_selection import GridSearchCV
def make_classifier(optimizer):
    classifier = Sequential()
    classifier.add(Dense(9, kernel_initializer = "uniform", activation = "relu", input_dim=18))
    classifier.add(Dense(1, kernel_initializer = "uniform", activation = "sigmoid"))
    classifier.compile(optimizer= optimizer,loss = "binary_crossentropy",metrics = ["accuracy"])
    return classifier

You have started by importing GridSearchCV. You have then made changes to the make_classifierfunction so that you can try different optimizers. You’ve initialized the classifier, added the input and output layer, and then compiled the classifier. Finally, you have returned the classifier so you can use it.

Like in step 4, insert this line of code to define the classifier:

classifier = KerasClassifier(build_fn = make_classifier)

You’ve defined the classifier using the KerasClassifier, which expects a function through the build_fnparameter. You have called the KerasClassifier and passed the make_classifier function that you created earlier.

You will now proceed to set a couple of parameters that you wish to experiment with. Enter this code into a cell and run:

params = {
    'batch_size':[20,35],
    'epochs':[2,3],
    'optimizer':['adam','rmsprop']
}

Here you have added different batch sizes, number of epochs, and different types of optimizer functions.

For a small dataset like yours, a batch size of between 20–35 is good. For large datasets its important to experiment with larger batch sizes. Using low numbers for the number of epochs ensures that you get results within a short period. However, you can experiment with bigger numbers that will take a while to complete depending on the processing speed of your server. The adam and rmsprop optimizers from keras are a good choice for this type of neural network.

Now you’re going to use the different parameters you have defined to search for the best parameters using the GridSearchCV function. Enter this into the next cell and run it:

grid_search = GridSearchCV(estimator=classifier,
                           param_grid=params,
                           scoring="accuracy",
                           cv=2)

The grid search function expects the following parameters:

estimator: the classifier that you’re using.
param_grid: the set of parameters that you’re going to test.
scoring: the metric you’re using.
cv: the number of folds you’ll test on.

Next, you fit this grid_search to your training dataset:

grid_search = grid_search.fit(X_train,y_train)

Your output will be similar to the following, wait a moment for it to complete:

Output
Epoch 1/2
5249/5249 [==============================] - 1s 228us/step - loss: 0.5958 - acc: 0.7645
Epoch 2/2
5249/5249 [==============================] - 0s 82us/step - loss: 0.3962 - acc: 0.8510
Epoch 1/2
5250/5250 [==============================] - 1s 222us/step - loss: 0.5935 - acc: 0.7596
Epoch 2/2
5250/5250 [==============================] - 0s 85us/step - loss: 0.4080 - acc: 0.8029
Epoch 1/2
5249/5249 [==============================] - 1s 214us/step - loss: 0.5929 - acc: 0.7676
Epoch 2/2
5249/5249 [==============================] - 0s 82us/step - loss: 0.4261 - acc: 0.7864

Add the following code to a notebook cell to obtain the best parameters from this search using the best_params_ attribute:

best_param = grid_search.best_params_
best_accuracy = grid_search.best_score_

You can now check the best parameters for your model with the following code:

best_param

Your output shows that the best batch size is 20, the best number of epochs is 2, and the adam optimizer is the best for your model:

Output
{'batch_size': 20, 'epochs': 2, 'optimizer': 'adam'}

You can check the best accuracy for your model. The best_accuracy number represents the highest accuracy you obtain from the best parameters after running the grid search:

best_accuracy

Your output will be similar to the following:

Output
0.8533193637489285

You’ve used GridSearch to figure out the best parameters for your classifier. You have seen that the best batch_size is 20, the best optimizer is the adam optimizer and the best number of epochs is 2. You have also obtained the best accuracy for your classifier as being 85%. You’ve built an employee retention model that is able to predict if an employee stays or leaves with an accuracy of up to 85%.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you’ve used Keras to build an artificial neural network that predicts the probability that an employee will leave a company. You combined your previous knowledge in machine learning using scikit-learn to achieve this. To further improve your model, you can try different activation functions or optimizer functions from keras. You could also experiment with a different number of folds, or, even build a model with a different dataset.

For other tutorials in the machine learning field or using TensorFlow, you can try building a neural network to recognize handwritten digits or other DigitalOcean machine learning tutorials.

#python #machine-learning #tensorflow

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How To Build a Deep Learning Model to Predict Employee Retention Using Keras and TensorFlow

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Pdf2gerb: Perl Script Converts PDF Files to Gerber format

pdf2gerb

Perl script converts PDF files to Gerber format

Pdf2Gerb generates Gerber 274X photoplotting and Excellon drill files from PDFs of a PCB. Up to three PDFs are used: the top copper layer, the bottom copper layer (for 2-sided PCBs), and an optional silk screen layer. The PDFs can be created directly from any PDF drawing software, or a PDF print driver can be used to capture the Print output if the drawing software does not directly support output to PDF.

The general workflow is as follows:

Design the PCB using your favorite CAD or drawing software.
Print the top and bottom copper and top silk screen layers to a PDF file.
Run Pdf2Gerb on the PDFs to create Gerber and Excellon files.
Use a Gerber viewer to double-check the output against the original PCB design.
Make adjustments as needed.
Submit the files to a PCB manufacturer.

Please note that Pdf2Gerb does NOT perform DRC (Design Rule Checks), as these will vary according to individual PCB manufacturer conventions and capabilities. Also note that Pdf2Gerb is not perfect, so the output files must always be checked before submitting them. As of version 1.6, Pdf2Gerb supports most PCB elements, such as round and square pads, round holes, traces, SMD pads, ground planes, no-fill areas, and panelization. However, because it interprets the graphical output of a Print function, there are limitations in what it can recognize (or there may be bugs).

See docs/Pdf2Gerb.pdf for install/setup, config, usage, and other info.

pdf2gerb_cfg.pm

#Pdf2Gerb config settings:
#Put this file in same folder/directory as pdf2gerb.pl itself (global settings),
#or copy to another folder/directory with PDFs if you want PCB-specific settings.
#There is only one user of this file, so we don't need a custom package or namespace.
#NOTE: all constants defined in here will be added to main namespace.
#package pdf2gerb_cfg;

use strict; #trap undef vars (easier debug)
use warnings; #other useful info (easier debug)


##############################################################################################
#configurable settings:
#change values here instead of in main pfg2gerb.pl file

use constant WANT_COLORS => ($^O !~ m/Win/); #ANSI colors no worky on Windows? this must be set < first DebugPrint() call

#just a little warning; set realistic expectations:
#DebugPrint("${\(CYAN)}Pdf2Gerb.pl ${\(VERSION)}, $^O O/S\n${\(YELLOW)}${\(BOLD)}${\(ITALIC)}This is EXPERIMENTAL software.  \nGerber files MAY CONTAIN ERRORS.  Please CHECK them before fabrication!${\(RESET)}", 0); #if WANT_DEBUG

use constant METRIC => FALSE; #set to TRUE for metric units (only affect final numbers in output files, not internal arithmetic)
use constant APERTURE_LIMIT => 0; #34; #max #apertures to use; generate warnings if too many apertures are used (0 to not check)
use constant DRILL_FMT => '2.4'; #'2.3'; #'2.4' is the default for PCB fab; change to '2.3' for CNC

use constant WANT_DEBUG => 0; #10; #level of debug wanted; higher == more, lower == less, 0 == none
use constant GERBER_DEBUG => 0; #level of debug to include in Gerber file; DON'T USE FOR FABRICATION
use constant WANT_STREAMS => FALSE; #TRUE; #save decompressed streams to files (for debug)
use constant WANT_ALLINPUT => FALSE; #TRUE; #save entire input stream (for debug ONLY)

#DebugPrint(sprintf("${\(CYAN)}DEBUG: stdout %d, gerber %d, want streams? %d, all input? %d, O/S: $^O, Perl: $]${\(RESET)}\n", WANT_DEBUG, GERBER_DEBUG, WANT_STREAMS, WANT_ALLINPUT), 1);
#DebugPrint(sprintf("max int = %d, min int = %d\n", MAXINT, MININT), 1); 

#define standard trace and pad sizes to reduce scaling or PDF rendering errors:
#This avoids weird aperture settings and replaces them with more standardized values.
#(I'm not sure how photoplotters handle strange sizes).
#Fewer choices here gives more accurate mapping in the final Gerber files.
#units are in inches
use constant TOOL_SIZES => #add more as desired
(
#round or square pads (> 0) and drills (< 0):
    .010, -.001,  #tiny pads for SMD; dummy drill size (too small for practical use, but needed so StandardTool will use this entry)
    .031, -.014,  #used for vias
    .041, -.020,  #smallest non-filled plated hole
    .051, -.025,
    .056, -.029,  #useful for IC pins
    .070, -.033,
    .075, -.040,  #heavier leads
#    .090, -.043,  #NOTE: 600 dpi is not high enough resolution to reliably distinguish between .043" and .046", so choose 1 of the 2 here
    .100, -.046,
    .115, -.052,
    .130, -.061,
    .140, -.067,
    .150, -.079,
    .175, -.088,
    .190, -.093,
    .200, -.100,
    .220, -.110,
    .160, -.125,  #useful for mounting holes
#some additional pad sizes without holes (repeat a previous hole size if you just want the pad size):
    .090, -.040,  #want a .090 pad option, but use dummy hole size
    .065, -.040, #.065 x .065 rect pad
    .035, -.040, #.035 x .065 rect pad
#traces:
    .001,  #too thin for real traces; use only for board outlines
    .006,  #minimum real trace width; mainly used for text
    .008,  #mainly used for mid-sized text, not traces
    .010,  #minimum recommended trace width for low-current signals
    .012,
    .015,  #moderate low-voltage current
    .020,  #heavier trace for power, ground (even if a lighter one is adequate)
    .025,
    .030,  #heavy-current traces; be careful with these ones!
    .040,
    .050,
    .060,
    .080,
    .100,
    .120,
);
#Areas larger than the values below will be filled with parallel lines:
#This cuts down on the number of aperture sizes used.
#Set to 0 to always use an aperture or drill, regardless of size.
use constant { MAX_APERTURE => max((TOOL_SIZES)) + .004, MAX_DRILL => -min((TOOL_SIZES)) + .004 }; #max aperture and drill sizes (plus a little tolerance)
#DebugPrint(sprintf("using %d standard tool sizes: %s, max aper %.3f, max drill %.3f\n", scalar((TOOL_SIZES)), join(", ", (TOOL_SIZES)), MAX_APERTURE, MAX_DRILL), 1);

#NOTE: Compare the PDF to the original CAD file to check the accuracy of the PDF rendering and parsing!
#for example, the CAD software I used generated the following circles for holes:
#CAD hole size:   parsed PDF diameter:      error:
#  .014                .016                +.002
#  .020                .02267              +.00267
#  .025                .026                +.001
#  .029                .03167              +.00267
#  .033                .036                +.003
#  .040                .04267              +.00267
#This was usually ~ .002" - .003" too big compared to the hole as displayed in the CAD software.
#To compensate for PDF rendering errors (either during CAD Print function or PDF parsing logic), adjust the values below as needed.
#units are pixels; for example, a value of 2.4 at 600 dpi = .0004 inch, 2 at 600 dpi = .0033"
use constant
{
    HOLE_ADJUST => -0.004 * 600, #-2.6, #holes seemed to be slightly oversized (by .002" - .004"), so shrink them a little
    RNDPAD_ADJUST => -0.003 * 600, #-2, #-2.4, #round pads seemed to be slightly oversized, so shrink them a little
    SQRPAD_ADJUST => +0.001 * 600, #+.5, #square pads are sometimes too small by .00067, so bump them up a little
    RECTPAD_ADJUST => 0, #(pixels) rectangular pads seem to be okay? (not tested much)
    TRACE_ADJUST => 0, #(pixels) traces seemed to be okay?
    REDUCE_TOLERANCE => .001, #(inches) allow this much variation when reducing circles and rects
};

#Also, my CAD's Print function or the PDF print driver I used was a little off for circles, so define some additional adjustment values here:
#Values are added to X/Y coordinates; units are pixels; for example, a value of 1 at 600 dpi would be ~= .002 inch
use constant
{
    CIRCLE_ADJUST_MINX => 0,
    CIRCLE_ADJUST_MINY => -0.001 * 600, #-1, #circles were a little too high, so nudge them a little lower
    CIRCLE_ADJUST_MAXX => +0.001 * 600, #+1, #circles were a little too far to the left, so nudge them a little to the right
    CIRCLE_ADJUST_MAXY => 0,
    SUBST_CIRCLE_CLIPRECT => FALSE, #generate circle and substitute for clip rects (to compensate for the way some CAD software draws circles)
    WANT_CLIPRECT => TRUE, #FALSE, #AI doesn't need clip rect at all? should be on normally?
    RECT_COMPLETION => FALSE, #TRUE, #fill in 4th side of rect when 3 sides found
};

#allow .012 clearance around pads for solder mask:
#This value effectively adjusts pad sizes in the TOOL_SIZES list above (only for solder mask layers).
use constant SOLDER_MARGIN => +.012; #units are inches

#line join/cap styles:
use constant
{
    CAP_NONE => 0, #butt (none); line is exact length
    CAP_ROUND => 1, #round cap/join; line overhangs by a semi-circle at either end
    CAP_SQUARE => 2, #square cap/join; line overhangs by a half square on either end
    CAP_OVERRIDE => FALSE, #cap style overrides drawing logic
};
    
#number of elements in each shape type:
use constant
{
    RECT_SHAPELEN => 6, #x0, y0, x1, y1, count, "rect" (start, end corners)
    LINE_SHAPELEN => 6, #x0, y0, x1, y1, count, "line" (line seg)
    CURVE_SHAPELEN => 10, #xstart, ystart, x0, y0, x1, y1, xend, yend, count, "curve" (bezier 2 points)
    CIRCLE_SHAPELEN => 5, #x, y, 5, count, "circle" (center + radius)
};
#const my %SHAPELEN =
#Readonly my %SHAPELEN =>
our %SHAPELEN =
(
    rect => RECT_SHAPELEN,
    line => LINE_SHAPELEN,
    curve => CURVE_SHAPELEN,
    circle => CIRCLE_SHAPELEN,
);

#panelization:
#This will repeat the entire body the number of times indicated along the X or Y axes (files grow accordingly).
#Display elements that overhang PCB boundary can be squashed or left as-is (typically text or other silk screen markings).
#Set "overhangs" TRUE to allow overhangs, FALSE to truncate them.
#xpad and ypad allow margins to be added around outer edge of panelized PCB.
use constant PANELIZE => {'x' => 1, 'y' => 1, 'xpad' => 0, 'ypad' => 0, 'overhangs' => TRUE}; #number of times to repeat in X and Y directions

# Set this to 1 if you need TurboCAD support.
#$turboCAD = FALSE; #is this still needed as an option?

#CIRCAD pad generation uses an appropriate aperture, then moves it (stroke) "a little" - we use this to find pads and distinguish them from PCB holes. 
use constant PAD_STROKE => 0.3; #0.0005 * 600; #units are pixels
#convert very short traces to pads or holes:
use constant TRACE_MINLEN => .001; #units are inches
#use constant ALWAYS_XY => TRUE; #FALSE; #force XY even if X or Y doesn't change; NOTE: needs to be TRUE for all pads to show in FlatCAM and ViewPlot
use constant REMOVE_POLARITY => FALSE; #TRUE; #set to remove subtractive (negative) polarity; NOTE: must be FALSE for ground planes

#PDF uses "points", each point = 1/72 inch
#combined with a PDF scale factor of .12, this gives 600 dpi resolution (1/72 * .12 = 600 dpi)
use constant INCHES_PER_POINT => 1/72; #0.0138888889; #multiply point-size by this to get inches

# The precision used when computing a bezier curve. Higher numbers are more precise but slower (and generate larger files).
#$bezierPrecision = 100;
use constant BEZIER_PRECISION => 36; #100; #use const; reduced for faster rendering (mainly used for silk screen and thermal pads)

# Ground planes and silk screen or larger copper rectangles or circles are filled line-by-line using this resolution.
use constant FILL_WIDTH => .01; #fill at most 0.01 inch at a time

# The max number of characters to read into memory
use constant MAX_BYTES => 10 * M; #bumped up to 10 MB, use const

use constant DUP_DRILL1 => TRUE; #FALSE; #kludge: ViewPlot doesn't load drill files that are too small so duplicate first tool

my $runtime = time(); #Time::HiRes::gettimeofday(); #measure my execution time

print STDERR "Loaded config settings from '${\(__FILE__)}'.\n";
1; #last value must be truthful to indicate successful load


#############################################################################################
#junk/experiment:

#use Package::Constants;
#use Exporter qw(import); #https://perldoc.perl.org/Exporter.html

#my $caller = "pdf2gerb::";

#sub cfg
#{
#    my $proto = shift;
#    my $class = ref($proto) || $proto;
#    my $settings =
#    {
#        $WANT_DEBUG => 990, #10; #level of debug wanted; higher == more, lower == less, 0 == none
#    };
#    bless($settings, $class);
#    return $settings;
#}

#use constant HELLO => "hi there2"; #"main::HELLO" => "hi there";
#use constant GOODBYE => 14; #"main::GOODBYE" => 12;

#print STDERR "read cfg file\n";

#our @EXPORT_OK = Package::Constants->list(__PACKAGE__); #https://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=1072691; NOTE: "_OK" skips short/common names

#print STDERR scalar(@EXPORT_OK) . " consts exported:\n";
#foreach(@EXPORT_OK) { print STDERR "$_\n"; }
#my $val = main::thing("xyz");
#print STDERR "caller gave me $val\n";
#foreach my $arg (@ARGV) { print STDERR "arg $arg\n"; }

Download Details:

Author: swannman
Source Code: https://github.com/swannman/pdf2gerb

License: GPL-3.0 license

#perl

Marget D

1618317562

Top Deep Learning Development Services | Hire Deep Learning Developer

View more: https://www.inexture.com/services/deep-learning-development/

We at Inexture, strategically work on every project we are associated with. We propose a robust set of AI, ML, and DL consulting services. Our virtuoso team of data scientists and developers meticulously work on every project and add a personalized touch to it. Because we keep our clientele aware of everything being done associated with their project so there’s a sense of transparency being maintained. Leverage our services for your next AI project for end-to-end optimum services.

#deep learning development #deep learning framework #deep learning expert #deep learning ai #deep learning services

Mckenzie Osiki

1623906928

How To Use “Model Stacking” To Improve Machine Learning Predictions

What is Model Stacking?

Model Stacking is a way to improve model predictions by combining the outputs of multiple models and running them through another machine learning model called a meta-learner. It is a popular strategy used to win kaggle competitions, but despite their usefulness they’re rarely talked about in data science articles — which I hope to change.

Essentially a stacked model works by running the output of multiple models through a “meta-learner” (usually a linear regressor/classifier, but can be other models like decision trees). The meta-learner attempts to minimize the weakness and maximize the strengths of every individual model. The result is usually a very robust model that generalizes well on unseen data.

The architecture for a stacked model can be illustrated by the image below:

#tensorflow #neural-networks #model-stacking #how to use “model stacking” to improve machine learning predictions #model stacking #machine learning

Sedrick Carroll

1595422560

Keras Tutorial - Ultimate Guide to Deep Learning - DataFlair

Welcome to DataFlair Keras Tutorial. This tutorial will introduce you to everything you need to know to get started with Keras. You will discover the characteristics, features, and various other properties of Keras. This article also explains the different neural network layers and the pre-trained models available in Keras. You will get the idea of how Keras makes it easier to try and experiment with new architectures in neural networks. And how Keras empowers new ideas and its implementation in a faster, efficient way.

Introduction to Keras

Keras is an open-source deep learning framework developed in python. Developers favor Keras because it is user-friendly, modular, and extensible. Keras allows developers for fast experimentation with neural networks.

Keras is a high-level API and uses Tensorflow, Theano, or CNTK as its backend. It provides a very clean and easy way to create deep learning models.

Characteristics of Keras

Keras has the following characteristics:

It is simple to use and consistent. Since we describe models in python, it is easy to code, compact, and easy to debug.
Keras is based on minimal substructure, it tries to minimize the user actions for common use cases.
Keras allows us to use multiple backends, provides GPU support on CUDA, and allows us to train models on multiple GPUs.
It offers a consistent API that provides necessary feedback when an error occurs.
Using Keras, you can customize the functionalities of your code up to a great extent. Even small customization makes a big change because these functionalities are deeply integrated with the low-level backend.

Benefits of using Keras

The following major benefits of using Keras over other deep learning frameworks are:

The simple API structure of Keras is designed for both new developers and experts.
The Keras interface is very user friendly and is pretty optimized for general use cases.
In Keras, you can write custom blocks to extend it.
Keras is the second most popular deep learning framework after TensorFlow.
Tensorflow also provides Keras implementation using its tf.keras module. You can access all the functionalities of Keras in TensorFlow using tf.keras.

Keras Installation

Before installing TensorFlow, you should have one of its backends. We prefer you to install Tensorflow. Install Tensorflow and Keras using pip python package installer.

Starting with Keras

The basic data structure of Keras is model, it defines how to organize layers. A simple type of model is the Sequential model, a sequential way of adding layers. For more flexible architecture, Keras provides a Functional API. Functional API allows you to take multiple inputs and produce outputs.

Keras Sequential model

Keras Functional API

It allows you to define more complex models.

#keras tutorials #introduction to keras #keras models #keras tutorial #layers in keras #why learn keras

Mikel Okuneva

1603735200

Top 10 Deep Learning Sessions To Look Forward To At DVDC 2020

The Deep Learning DevCon 2020, DLDC 2020, has exciting talks and sessions around the latest developments in the field of deep learning, that will not only be interesting for professionals of this field but also for the enthusiasts who are willing to make a career in the field of deep learning. The two-day conference scheduled for 29th and 30th October will host paper presentations, tech talks, workshops that will uncover some interesting developments as well as the latest research and advancement of this area. Further to this, with deep learning gaining massive traction, this conference will highlight some fascinating use cases across the world.

Here are ten interesting talks and sessions of DLDC 2020 that one should definitely attend:

Also Read: Why Deep Learning DevCon Comes At The Right Time

Adversarial Robustness in Deep Learning

By Dipanjan Sarkar

**About: **Adversarial Robustness in Deep Learning is a session presented by Dipanjan Sarkar, a Data Science Lead at Applied Materials, as well as a Google Developer Expert in Machine Learning. In this session, he will focus on the adversarial robustness in the field of deep learning, where he talks about its importance, different types of adversarial attacks, and will showcase some ways to train the neural networks with adversarial realisation. Considering abstract deep learning has brought us tremendous achievements in the fields of computer vision and natural language processing, this talk will be really interesting for people working in this area. With this session, the attendees will have a comprehensive understanding of adversarial perturbations in the field of deep learning and ways to deal with them with common recipes.

Read an interview with Dipanjan Sarkar.

Imbalance Handling with Combination of Deep Variational Autoencoder and NEATER

By Divye Singh

**About: **Imbalance Handling with Combination of Deep Variational Autoencoder and NEATER is a paper presentation by Divye Singh, who has a masters in technology degree in Mathematical Modeling and Simulation and has the interest to research in the field of artificial intelligence, learning-based systems, machine learning, etc. In this paper presentation, he will talk about the common problem of class imbalance in medical diagnosis and anomaly detection, and how the problem can be solved with a deep learning framework. The talk focuses on the paper, where he has proposed a synergistic over-sampling method generating informative synthetic minority class data by filtering the noise from the over-sampled examples. Further, he will also showcase the experimental results on several real-life imbalanced datasets to prove the effectiveness of the proposed method for binary classification problems.

Default Rate Prediction Models for Self-Employment in Korea using Ridge, Random Forest & Deep Neural Network

By Dongsuk Hong

About: This is a paper presentation given by Dongsuk Hong, who is a PhD in Computer Science, and works in the big data centre of Korea Credit Information Services. This talk will introduce the attendees with machine learning and deep learning models for predicting self-employment default rates using credit information. He will talk about the study, where the DNN model is implemented for two purposes — a sub-model for the selection of credit information variables; and works for cascading to the final model that predicts default rates. Hong’s main research area is data analysis of credit information, where she is particularly interested in evaluating the performance of prediction models based on machine learning and deep learning. This talk will be interesting for the deep learning practitioners who are willing to make a career in this field.

#opinions #attend dldc 2020 #deep learning #deep learning sessions #deep learning talks #dldc 2020 #top deep learning sessions at dldc 2020 #top deep learning talks at dldc 2020