tensorstudio 1.2.0

TensorStudio is a compact C++ tensor and autograd engine with a Python API for learning, experimentation, and lightweight ML workloads.

TensorStudio

TensorStudio is a compact C++ tensor and autograd engine with a Python API for learning, experimentation, and lightweight ML workloads.

TensorStudio 1.2.0 is a CPU-only stable API foundation. It is eager-only, intentionally small, and not a replacement for mature ML frameworks.

Install

From PyPI:

python -m pip install tensorstudio

From a source checkout:

python -m pip install -U pip
python -m pip install -e ".[dev]"

Install optional extras for ONNX export and Pillow-backed image inputs:

python -m pip install "tensorstudio[onnx,vision]"

Build source and wheel distributions:

python -m build
python -m twine check dist/*

End users should install wheels and should not need CMake. Source builds require a C++20 compiler because the native extension is implemented in C++.

Platform Setup

Windows is the primary release target. Use Python from python.org and install Microsoft C++ Build Tools or Visual Studio with the Desktop development with C++ workload before building from source:

python -m pip install -U pip
python -m pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest -q

Linux source builds need GCC or Clang, CMake, and Python development headers:

python -m pip install -U pip
python -m pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest -q

macOS source builds need Xcode Command Line Tools:

xcode-select --install
python -m pip install -U pip
python -m pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest -q

Quickstart

import tensorstudio as ts

x = ts.tensor([[1.0, 2.0], [3.0, 4.0]])
y = ts.ones((2, 2))

print((x + y).tolist())
print((x @ y).numpy())
print(x.reshape((4,)).tolist())

Tensor API

TensorStudio supports CPU tensors with float32, float64, int32, int64, and bool dtypes.

import tensorstudio as ts

ts.manual_seed(7)

a = ts.zeros((2, 3))
b = ts.rand((2, 3))
c = ts.eye(3)
d = ts.linspace(0.0, 1.0, 5)

print(a.shape, a.strides, a.device, a.is_contiguous)
print((b.clamp(0.2, 0.8) + 1).mean().item())
print(b.sum(axis=1).tolist())
print(ts.concat([b, b], axis=0).shape, b.astype("float64").dtype)
print(c.tolist(), d.tolist())
print(ts.zeros_like(b).shape, ts.randn_like(b, seed=11).dtype)

Autograd

import tensorstudio as ts

x = ts.tensor([1.0, 2.0, 3.0], requires_grad=True)
loss = (x * x).mean()
loss.backward()

print(x.grad.tolist())

Use no_grad() when you want eager computation without recording a graph:

with ts.no_grad():
    y = x * 2

Neural Networks

import tensorstudio as ts
from tensorstudio import nn, optim

ts.manual_seed(0)

model = nn.Sequential(nn.Linear(1, 8), nn.Tanh(), nn.Linear(8, 1))
optimizer = optim.SGD(model.parameters(), lr=0.05, momentum=0.9)
scheduler = optim.StepLR(optimizer, step_size=50, gamma=0.5)
criterion = nn.MSELoss()

x = ts.tensor([[0.0], [1.0], [2.0], [3.0]])
y = ts.tensor([[1.0], [3.0], [5.0], [7.0]])

for _ in range(100):
    optimizer.zero_grad()
    loss = criterion(model(x), y)
    loss.backward()
    optim.clip_grad_norm_(model.parameters(), max_norm=10.0)
    optimizer.step()
    scheduler.step()

print(loss.item())
print(model.state_dict().keys())
print(model.parameter_count())

Vision

TensorStudio includes a small vision namespace for image preprocessing and compact CNN classifiers. Image file decoding remains the job of Pillow or other image libraries; TensorStudio converts image-like arrays into channel-first tensors and runs the model with its native Conv2d and pooling kernels.

import numpy as np
import tensorstudio as ts
from tensorstudio import nn, optim

image = np.zeros((8, 8, 3), dtype=np.uint8)
x = ts.vision.to_tensor(image).reshape((1, 3, 8, 8))
x = ts.vision.normalize(x, mean=(0.5, 0.5, 0.5), std=(0.5, 0.5, 0.5))

model = ts.vision.TinyConvClassifier((3, 8, 8), num_classes=2)
target = ts.tensor([1], dtype="int64")
optimizer = optim.SGD(model.parameters(), lr=0.01)

optimizer.zero_grad()
loss = nn.CrossEntropyLoss()(model(x), target)
loss.backward()
optimizer.step()

DataLoader

import tensorstudio as ts
from tensorstudio.data import DataLoader, TensorDataset

dataset = TensorDataset(ts.arange(6).reshape((6, 1)), ts.arange(6))
loader = DataLoader(dataset, batch_size=2, shuffle=True, seed=42)

for features, targets in loader:
    print(features.shape, targets.shape)

The v1 DataLoader is intentionally single-process so it works cleanly on Windows without multiprocessing setup.

Performance

TensorStudio is optimized for small-to-medium CPU eager workloads, but performance is still experimental. Benchmarks live in benchmarks/ and can be run locally:

python benchmark_all.py
python benchmarks/benchmark_report.py

benchmark_all.py writes benchmarks/results.md and includes explicit win columns for NumPy, TensorFlow, PyTorch, and JAX when those libraries are available locally.

On one Windows CPython 3.10 development run reporting 1.2.0, TensorStudio beat NumPy on 26 small operation benchmark cases and lost on 77 NumPy-comparable cases. Against PyTorch CPU 2.12.1+cpu, TensorStudio won 75 local cases and lost 33. The strongest local wins were small eager operations, small contiguous axis reductions, and the simple NumPy convolution/pooling references where framework dispatch or Python loops dominate; larger matrix multiplication, PyTorch convolution and pooling, larger axis reductions, larger transcendental activations, and larger autograd workloads remain faster in PyTorch and NumPy. See benchmarks/results.md for the full table, platform details, and exact timings.

Snapshot from that local run:

operation	shape	TensorStudio	NumPy	PyTorch CPU	TS vs NumPy	TS vs PyTorch
sigmoid	(32,)	0.0017 ms	0.0038 ms	0.0614 ms	2.1691x	35.3154x
mean	(32,)	0.0029 ms	0.0131 ms	0.0186 ms	4.5638x	6.4709x
sum_axis1	(16, 16)	0.0027 ms	0.0029 ms	0.0085 ms	1.0894x	3.1408x
chain_relu	(128,)	0.0112 ms	0.0051 ms	0.0726 ms	0.4575x	6.4533x
matmul	(256, 256)	4.4121 ms	0.3779 ms	0.1669 ms	0.0856x	0.0378x
conv2d_3x3_padding1	(1, 1, 8, 8)	0.2374 ms	1.7112 ms	0.0186 ms	7.2091x	0.0784x
max_pool2d_2x2	(1, 1, 16, 16)	0.0237 ms	0.2764 ms	0.0082 ms	11.6685x	0.3462x
avg_pool2d_2x2	(1, 1, 16, 16)	0.0198 ms	0.7431 ms	0.0073 ms	37.4930x	0.3662x
elementwise_backward	(1024,)	3.0196 ms	n/a	0.2254 ms	n/a	0.0746x

Speedup is competitor median / TensorStudio median, so values above 1.0x favor TensorStudio.

Do not treat these results as universal. TensorStudio does not claim to be faster than NumPy, TensorFlow, PyTorch, or JAX overall.

Save And Load

import tensorstudio as ts
from tensorstudio import nn

model = nn.Linear(2, 1)
ts.save({"model": model.state_dict()}, "checkpoint.tsmodel")
checkpoint = ts.load("checkpoint.tsmodel")

Serialization uses pickle. Loading pickle files from untrusted sources is unsafe because pickle can execute arbitrary code.

For safer tensor and state_dict interchange, use TensorStudio's non-pickle NPZ helpers:

state = model.state_dict()
ts.save_npz(state, "weights.tsnpz")
model.load_state_dict(ts.load_npz("weights.tsnpz"))

ONNX Export

TensorStudio can export a supported nn.Sequential graph to ONNX when the optional onnx extra is installed:

import tensorstudio as ts
from tensorstudio import nn

model = nn.Sequential(
    nn.Conv2d(1, 2, kernel_size=3, padding=1),
    nn.ReLU(),
    nn.MaxPool2d(2),
    nn.Flatten(),
    nn.Linear(2 * 2 * 2, 3),
)

ts.export_onnx(model, "classifier.onnx", input_shape=(1, 1, 4, 4))

The v1.2 exporter supports Linear, Conv2d, Flatten, ReLU, Sigmoid, Tanh, MaxPool2d, and AvgPool2d. It is an exporter, not an ONNX runtime or importer.

Development

python -m pip install -e ".[dev,docs]"
python test_all.py --skip-build
ruff check .
mypy python/tensorstudio
pytest -q
python -m build
python -m twine check dist/*

The native extension module is tensorstudio._C, built with CMake, pybind11, scikit-build-core, and C++20.

Release Checklist

• python test_all.py passes locally.
• ruff check . passes.
• mypy python/tensorstudio passes.
• pytest -q passes on Windows, Linux, and macOS.
• python -m build passes.
• python -m twine check dist/* passes.
• Benchmarks are generated and performance claims match the data.
• Clean wheel installs pass on Windows, Linux, and macOS.
• Clean sdist installs pass on Windows, Linux, and macOS.
• Examples run on all platforms.
• Docs match the implemented feature set.
• No PyPI tokens are committed or printed.
• TestPyPI is verified before a real PyPI release.

Publishing

GitHub Actions build wheels with cibuildwheel. The publish workflow is designed for PyPI trusted publishing with id-token: write; it should not hardcode PyPI tokens or print secrets.

Current Limitations

• CPU backend only.
• Eager execution only.
• No CUDA or Metal backend yet.
• No BLAS-backed matrix multiplication yet.
• No graph compiler or distributed runtime.
• Convolution and pooling support are currently limited to CPU NCHW conv2d, max_pool2d, and avg_pool2d style workloads.
• Vision utilities are preprocessing and small CNN helpers, not a full computer vision library.
• ONNX support is export-only for a limited set of TensorStudio modules.
• Reductions support all-element or single-axis reductions, not tuple-axis reductions yet.
• No sparse tensors or advanced indexing.
• Dtype casting is basic and does not include a full promotion/casting policy.
• Experimental performance; benchmarks are local references only.
• Pickle serialization is for trusted TensorStudio objects only.

Roadmap

• CUDA backend
• Graph/JIT mode
• Broader convolution ops, adaptive/global pooling, and image-model examples
• Richer dataset utilities
• Model zoo examples
• ONNX import and broader export coverage
• Improved memory allocator
• SIMD kernels
• Multithreaded ops

License

TensorStudio is licensed under the MIT License.