Image classification

Image classification assigns an image to one of a fixed set of classes. You pass in the pixels and get back the classes ranked by probability: what the image most likely shows, and how sure the model is of each answer. Unlike object detection, which locates several objects with bounding boxes, classification labels the image as a whole.

createImageClassifier runs MobileNetV4 Conv-Small, trained on ImageNet-1k: 1000 classes of animals, vehicles, food, tools and household objects.

Quick start

import { createImageClassifier, imageBufferFromImageData, models } from 'runntime/zoo';

// 1. Load the model once. The weights download from the Hugging Face Hub.
const classifier = await createImageClassifier(models.imageClassification.MOBILENETV4.DEFAULT);

// 2. Get the pixels of an image, here from a canvas the picture is drawn on.
const ctx = canvas.getContext('2d');
const image = imageBufferFromImageData(ctx.getImageData(0, 0, canvas.width, canvas.height));

// 3. Classify it.
const classes = await classifier.classify(image, { topk: 5 });

// 4. Use the result: the five most likely classes, best first.
for (const { label, confidence } of classes) {
  console.log(label, confidence);
}
// minibus 0.59
// police van, police wagon, paddy wagon, patrol wagon, wagon, black Maria 0.11
// trolleybus, trolley coach, trackless trolley 0.07
// ...

// 5. Free the GPU memory when done.
classifier.dispose();

The example reads one picture off a canvas. A video or a camera works the same way: draw each frame on the canvas and call classify again, the classifier is loaded once.

The engine must be set up first, see Getting started. The model runs in half precision, so the device needs shader-f16.

Try it yourself

Your camera, frame by frame through classify() on your GPU, with the five most likely classes under each frame. Point it at a cup, a keyboard, a dog. The dashed square is what the model sees: everything outside it is cropped away. No camera? The sample picture goes through the same call.

Results

classify returns the classes best first: the topk most likely ones, or all 1000 when topk is not given. Each entry is:

interface Classification {
  label: string; // the class name: 'minibus', 'golden retriever', ...
  classId: number; // the same as a number, index into classifier.labels
  confidence: number; // how sure the model is, 0 to 1
}

The confidences of all 1000 classes sum to 1. A low top score means the model is torn between a few similar classes: in the example above the next guesses are all vans and buses too.

Methods

function createImageClassifier(
  model?: ImageClassifierModel,
  options?: LoadOptions,
): Promise<ImageClassifier>;

interface ImageClassifier {
  readonly labels: readonly string[];
  readonly inputSize: number;
  classify(
    image: ImageBuffer,
    options?: ClassifyOptions,
  ): Promise<(Classification & { label: string })[]>;
  dispose(): void;
}

interface ClassifyOptions {
  readonly topk?: number; // default: every class
}

• classify(image, options?) returns the most likely classes, best first. image is an ImageBuffer of any size. Build one with imageBufferFromImageData(imageData) from a canvas, or imageBuffer(bytes, width, height, format?) from raw rgba, rgb, bgra, bgr or gray bytes. topk caps how many come back.
• labels are the class names, by class index.
• inputSize is the model input width and height, 224.
• dispose() frees the GPU memory.

Options

The first argument is the model config, a plain object with the fields below. Every field is optional. models.imageClassification has the ready-made config, so the quick start passes it as is.

interface ImageClassifierModel {
  readonly modelPath?: ModelPath;
  readonly labels?: readonly string[]; // 1000 names, ImageNet by default
  readonly resizeMode?: 'crop' | 'stretch' | 'letterbox'; // default 'crop'
}

type ModelPath = string | RangeSource; // a URL, or bytes you already have

Examples:

// Weights hosted by you, class names in another language, no cropping.
await createImageClassifier({
  modelPath: '/models/mobilenetv4/model.safetensors',
  labels: myLabels,
  resizeMode: 'stretch',
});

• modelPath - the weights, a model.safetensors file of MobileNetV4 with the 1000 ImageNet classes. Default: the file on the Hugging Face Hub, so there is nothing to host. Point it at your own copy to serve the weights yourself.
• labels - the class names, one per class, 1000 of them. Default: the ImageNet names in English.
• resizeMode - how the image fits the model input. crop (default) cuts the middle 87.5% of the centered square, the crop the model was evaluated with; stretch distorts, letterbox pads.

Loading options

The second argument controls the download. Every field is optional.

interface LoadOptions {
  cache?: WeightCache;
  cacheId?: string;
  onProgress?: (name: string, doneBytes: number, totalBytes: number) => void;
  onBytes?: (chunkBytes: number) => void;
  signal?: AbortSignal;
}

Example:

import { createImageClassifier, createOpfsCache, models } from 'runntime/zoo';

const classifier = await createImageClassifier(models.imageClassification.MOBILENETV4.DEFAULT, {
  cache: await createOpfsCache('my-app'),
  onProgress: (name, done, total) => console.log(`${Math.round((100 * done) / total)}%`),
});

• cache - keeps the downloaded weights in the browser, so the next visit loads them without the network. createOpfsCache(name) is the built-in one.
• onProgress - called while the weights upload to the GPU, with the tensor name, bytes done and bytes total. Use it for a progress bar.
• signal - an AbortSignal. Abort it to stop the load between steps. A step already running, like the download or the GPU upload, finishes first.

Supported models

Model	Config	Weights	Classes	Input
MobileNetV4-Conv-S	models.imageClassification.MOBILENETV4	f16, 10.3 MB	ImageNet-1k	224×224