nnviz 0.1.0

Neural models visualization.

NNViz

NNViz is a python package to visualize neural networks in a comprehensible way. It is based on Graphviz and PyTorch.

Installation

Make sure you have a working installation of Graphviz on your system.

• If you are using Windows, graphviz dependencies are easily installable with conda, so consider using Miniconda or Anaconda instead of the plain Python distribution. Trying to install graphviz without conda is generally associated with symptoms like headaches, asphyxiation, and death.
• Linux users can install graphviz with their package manager (e.g. sudo apt install graphviz on Ubuntu).

Then:

pip install nnviz

Usage

Currently, nnviz is supposed to be used via its CLI, and not as a library.

You can display everything there is to know by entering:

nnviz --help

Examples

Visualize a resnet18 to a file named resnet18.pdf in the current directory:

nnviz resnet18

Visualize and show (with the default app) a resnet18:

nnviz resnet18 -s

Visualize a resnet18 and save to a custom file:

nnviz resnet18 -o my_resnet18.pdf

Visualize a resnet18 and collapse to a custom depth:

nnviz resnet18 -d 3

Visualize a custom model imported from an installed package:

nnviz package.module.submodule:MyModelConstructor

Visualize a custom model imported from a local file:

nnviz path/to/file.py:MyModelConstructor

Why NNViz

Do you want to visualize a torch.nn.Module in a comprehensible way? Here are some options for you:

Netron

Netron is a web-based viewer for neural network, deep learning and machine learning models. It supports ONNX, Keras, CoreML, Caffe, Caffe2, MXNet, Darknet, TensorFlow, PyTorch, TorchScript, CoreML and PaddlePaddle models.

Cool huh? No. It sucks ass:

• You have to compile your models to ONNX runtime - which can be a pain in the ass and 90% of the times requires you to apply changes to your code.
• Try to visualize a simple resnet18. You will get an endless clusterfuck of incomprehensible nodes that cannot be collapsed or reduced in any way. This is not useful.

Torchviz

Torchviz is really just a toy project that just displays the backpropagation graph:

• Module hierarchy is not tracked/displayed.
• Cannot collapse nodes.
• Limited to differentiable models.

Torchview

Torchview seems pretty cool. I did not know of its existence when I started developing nnviz, and in fact was developed in the same period.

Well, they do pretty much everything that nnviz does and more, which makes this package useless. :D