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Blocks - a MATLAB experiment framework
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BLOCKS version 0.1.1
Brian Fulkerson and Andrea Vedaldi
Changes:
0.1.1 Added HTML documentation (folder "doc")
Corrected a bug in block_quickseg
0.1 Initial release
Requirements:
To use Blocks you must have the following:
VLFeat 0.9.4.1 http://vlfeat.org/
GCmex 1.0 http://vision.ucla.edu/~brian/gcmex.html
libSVM-mat 2.89 http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~cjlin/libsvm/#matlab
Getting started with Blocks:
At its core, blocks is a modular framework which allows you to avoid
repeating computation. Consider the following hello world example:
% helloworld.m ======================================================
% Define the location where results should be saved
global wrd;
wrd.prefix = 'hwtest';
% Initialize and run a block of type helloworld.
bk = bkinit('helloworld');
bk.tag = 'helloworld@default';
[bk dirty] = bkbegin(bk);
if dirty
% Do some work
fprintf('Hello world!\n')
bk = bkend(bk);
end
% end ===============================================================
Running the example once create a few folders and produces the
output "Hello world!". Running it a second time should print
some "up to date" messages, but otherwise do nothing. In a real world
example, instead of printing a message, we could perform and save the
results of some computation. The second time the program is run, we
would have avoided recomputing.
Code involving blocks requires (at minimum) three functions: bkinit,
bkbegin, and bkend. In this hello world example, we create a block of
type helloworld with bkinit, then begin the block with bkbegin. At
this point, if the block is already up to date, we do nothing else.
However, if it isn't, we perform some computation and close the block.
By convention, we typically wrap bkbegin and bkinit in a block
function. These functions start with block_, and usually perform one
task in a pipeline (for example, extracting features). A very simple
block function looks like:
% block_test.m ======================================================
function bk = block_test(bk, varargin)
% If we do not include an argument, initialize the object.
if nargin == 0
bk = bkinit('test') ;
bk.imsize = 50;
bk.fetch = @fetch__ ;
return ;
end
global wrd;
% If the block is up-to-date, do nothing.
[bk, dirty] = bkbegin(bk) ;
if ~ dirty, return ; end
% Do some computation
output = vl_dsift(single(rand(bk.imsize)));
% Save the results
save(fullfile(wrd.prefix, bk.tag, 'test.mat'), 'output', '-MAT');
% End the block
bk = bkend(bk) ;
% Define a function in order to allow retrieval of data from the block
function varargout = fetch__(bk, what, varargin)
global wrd;
switch lowe
6681
r(what)
case 'output'
path = fullfile(wrd.prefix, bk.tag, 'test.mat') ;
data = load(path, '-MAT') ;
varargout{1} = data.output ;
otherwise
error('block_test: Attempted to fetch unknown type');
end
% end ===============================================================
There are a few things to notice here. First, the block name starts
with block_ and ends with the name of the type of block (test). When
the block is called without arguments, it initializes an instance
with the block's default options and returns. When the block is called
with an instance, it checks to see if it is up to date and performs
some actions. The results are saved in an instance specific folder,
and may be retrieved using the bkfetch, which in turn calls the
block's internal fetch function.
With this in mind, we can call this block using the following pattern:
% simple_test.m ======================================================
global wrd;
wrd.prefix = 'test';
bk = block_test ; % Initialize with default parameters
bk.imsize = 100 ; % Change a parameter
bk.tag = 'test@imresize100'; % A tag is required and identifies the
% block instance
bk = block_test(bk) ; % Run the block
% end ===============================================================
The first run will execute the block, and subsequent runs will not
re-execute the block unless either a parameter (eg. imsize) or an input to the block has changed.
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