How to download a machine learning dataset for PyTorch and TensorFlow in Python

Without any need to download, a variety of popular machine learning datasets can be accessed and streamed with Hub with one line of code. This enables you to explore the datasets and train models without needing to download machine learning datasets regardless of their size. Access classical datasets like CIFAR-10, MNIST or Fashion-MNIST, as well as large datasets like Google Objectron, ImageNet, COCO, and many others in Python.

What is MNIST Dataset?

The MNIST (Modified National Institute of Standards and Technology database) dataset contains a training set of 60,000 images and a test set of 10,000 images of handwritten digits. The handwritten digit images have been size-normalized and centered in a fixed size of 28×28 pixels. The MNIST digits dataset is often used by data scientists who want to try machine learning techniques and pattern recognition methods on real-world data while spending minimal effort on preprocessing and formatting.

What is COCO Dataset?

The COCO (Common Objects in Context) dataset comprises 91 common object categories, 82 of which have more than 5,000 labeled examples. The dataset has 2.5 million labeled instances in 328k photos, created with the help of a large number of crowd workers using unique user interfaces for category detection, instance spotting, and instance segmentation. COCO dataset is a novel dataset with the purpose of improving the state-of-the-art in object detection by aligning the problem within the larger framework of scene understanding.

What is CIFAR 10 Dataset?

The CIFAR10 (Canadian Institute For Advanced Research) dataset consists of 10 classes with 6000 color images of 32×32 resolution for each class. It is divided into 50000 training and 10000 testing images. The test dataset contains exactly 1000 randomly collected images from each class. The training datasets may contain more images per class compared to others but they contain 5000 images per class on average.

What is CIFAR 100 Dataset?

The CIFAR100 (Canadian Institute For Advanced Research) dataset consists of 100 classes with 600 color images of 32×32 resolution for each class. It is divided into 500 training and 100 testing images per class. In CIFAR100, there are 20 superclasses sub-grouped into 100 classes. The dataset comes with two labels for each image such as a “fine” label (class) and a “coarse” label (superclass).

What is the MNIST dataset used for

MNIST is used as a “hello world” example by data scientists worldwide. Typically, MNIST dataset is used as a benchmark dataset, or as a proof-of-concept for training and testing purposes in the field of machine learning.

What is the MNIST dataset for Python?

The MNIST dataset (Modified National Institute of Standards and Technology database) is one of the most popular datasets in machine learning. MNIST is a dataset of 60,000 square 28×28 pixel images of handwritten single digits between 0 and 9. The images are in grayscale format.

How to download the MNIST dataset in Python?

You can load MNIST dataset fast with one line of code using the open-source package Activeloop Hub in Python. See detailed instructions on how to load MNIST dataset training subset or MNIST dataset testing subset in Python.

How to create an Image Dataset like MNIST dataset?

With Activeloop Hub, creating image datasets like the MNIST digits dataset is simple. Simple datasets like MNIST can be created automatically by allowing Hub parse the legacy files into Hub dataset format. More complex datasets can be created manually.

What is the size of each image in the MNIST dataset?

MNIST dataset image size is constant across all images of the dataset. Each MNIST dataset image is a fixed-size 28×28 pixel square image.

MNIST vs Fashion-MNIST. What is the difference between MNIST and Fashion-MNIST?

MNIST and Fashion-MNIST dataset are two separate datasets. However, the Fashion-MNIST dataset is meant to be an MNIST dataset alternative. Fashion-MNIST comprises pictures of clothing items and was published in 2017 by Zalando, a German online retailer. Both datasets are of the same size: 60 000 photos in the training set, as well as 10 000 pictures of clothing in the validation set of the dataset.

What does MNIST stand for?

MNIST is an acronym for the Modified National Institute of Standards and Technology dataset.

Why is MNIST so popular?

Created in 1998, MNIST dataset containing handwritten digits from 0-9 is small in size, simple in structure and easy to use. This makes it a good first dataset to try various pattern recognition methods on, with minimal effort required on data preprocessing..

Is MNIST suitable for deep learning?

Yes, MNIST data set is one of the most used datasets for deep learning. As of July 2022, MNIST only falls behind CIFAR-10, Imagenet, coco datasets in the amount of papers that cite them (or has used as a benchmark dataset.

Free Spoken Digit Dataset (FSDD)

Estimated reading: 2 minutes

Visualization of the Spoken MNIST Dataset in the Deep Lake UI

Free Spoken Digit Dataset dataset

What is Free Spoken Digit Dataset?

The Free Spoken Digit Dataset, or the Spoken MNIST (Modified National Institute of Standards and Technology database) dataset contains recordings of spoken digits in wave files at 8kHz. The dataset recordings have been trimmed at the beginning and end so that they have near-minimal silence. This dataset contains 50 recordings for every 10 digits per every 6 speakers. This dataset in total contains 3000 recordings in English pronunciations.

Download Spoken MNIST Dataset in Python

Instead of downloading the Spoken MNIST dataset in Python, you can effortlessly load it in Python via our Deep Lake open-source with just one line of code.

Load Spoken MNIST Dataset in Python

				
					import deeplake
ds = deeplake.load("hub://activeloop/spoken_mnist")

Spoken MNIST Dataset Structure

Spoken MNIST Data Fields

audio: tensor containing audio recordings.
labels: tensor containing label for their respective audio.
spectrograms: tensor containing spectrogram of their recording.
speakers: tensor containing speaker id for audio.

How to use Spoken MNIST Dataset with PyTorch and TensorFlow in Python

Train a model on Spoken MNIST dataset with PyTorch in Python

Let’s use Deep Lake built-in PyTorch one-line dataloader to connect the data to the compute:

				
					dataloader = ds.pytorch(num_workers=0, batch_size=4, shuffle=False)

Train a model on Spoken MNIST dataset with TensorFlow in Python

				
					dataloader = ds.tensorflow()

Additional Information about Spoken MNIST Dataset

Spoken MNIST Dataset Description

Homepage: https://zenodo.org/record/1342401.
Repository: https://github.com/Jakobovski/free-spoken-digit-dataset.
Paper: Jackson, Z., Souza, C., Flaks, J., Pan, Y., Nicolas, H., & Thite, A. (2018). Jakobovski/free-spoken-digit-dataset: v1. 0.8.

Spoken MNIST Dataset Curators

Jackson Z, Souza C, Flaks J, Pan Y, Nicolas H, Thite A

Spoken MNIST Dataset Licensing Information

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Spoken MNIST Dataset Citation Information

				
					@misc{jackson2018jakobovski,
  title={Jakobovski/free-spoken-digit-dataset: v1. 0.8},
  author={Jackson, Zohar and Souza, C{\'e}sar and Flaks, Jason and Pan, Yuxin and Nicolas, Hereman and Thite, Adhish},
  year={2018},
  publisher={Zenodo}
}

Free Spoken Digit Dataset FAQs

What are the main differences between MNIST and Free Spoken Digit dataset?

Free Spoken Digit Dataset is meant as an audio substitute for the MNIST dataset.
Both Free Spoken Digit Dataset and MNIST datasets have 10 classes: the ten digits (0 to 9) for MNIST, whilst Free Spoken Digit Dataset has the ten digits (50 of each digit per speaker, with a total of 6 speakers)