Chas wrote: ↑Sat Jun 03, 2023 11:50 am
It is interesting that such things are getting possible
![Smile :-)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)
How many examples of each does the AI seem to need, do you feel?
MichelG, I think, posted a link to this site a while ago (but diatoms) and it made we wonder if it might be AI fodder:
https://naturalhistory.museumwales.ac.u ... kip=0&#top
Hey Chas - so there's no exact answer to "how many images" it depends a lot on the level of classification that you're trying to drill down to, how similar the images are, and what the goal of the tool is.
A classifier that sorts images of cats vs dogs might be very accurate with just 100 photos. A classifier that identifies the breeds of cats and dogs may require substantially more.
I think about diatoms a lot - these sites might be helpful or they might not be. I know a diatom researcher who live streams SEM imagery of diatom strews. Since strews show diatoms in all sorts of orientations and SEM imagery is very regular, I think it's a great candidate for an image classifier if I can get enough images. I imagine it would be possible to write an automated program that identifies individual diatoms at low mag and zooms in via SEM on each one to make an ID. So the user preps the strew, sputters, sticks it in the SEM, pushes a button, and goes for a coffee. When they come back, they get images of every diatom sorted taxonomically. So you could do some very effective diatom censuses and probably accelerate research by a lot. Big project, but I don't see any reason why it can't be done.