Category: Research Tools

What is YOLOX?

Among the many releases in the YOLO series, the newest one, YOLOX, came out in July 2021.

The YOLOX paper is available here (currently a preprint).
The GitHub repository is here.

YOLO is an object detection algorithm.
It is designed to run in real time, so it is extremely lightweight (inference alone can even run on a smartphone), it is easy to build systems around, and it has been adopted in many IoT devices.

“Object detection algorithm” may sound complicated, but an easy example to picture is a camera’s automatic face or eye focus.
A marker appears telling you “here is a face”; the same idea applies to other objects as well, and each one can be classified as to what it is.

There are many versions in the YOLO series: YOLO, YOLOv2, YOLOv3, YOLOv4, YOLOv5, and YOLOX.
It also runs not only on Python but on MATLAB as well, so you can adapt it to whichever platform you use.

Unlike the system used from YOLOv3 onward, YOLOX is based on the system of the original YOLO (the first published method), and it is said to be both faster and considerably more accurate.

Other blogs cover the details as well.

How to install YOLOX

Installation instructions are given on the GitHub page, but they are in English and do not cover using a virtual environment, so here I explain how to do it with an Anaconda virtual environment.

On both Windows and Mac, following the YOLOX manual exactly produced a string of errors.
The errors will likely keep changing with future versions, so look them up as they come up.

See below for how to use the conda command in the macOS Terminal.

Using Conda Commands on macOS

On Windows, I recommend using Anaconda Prompt.

Open Terminal (Anaconda Prompt), and a black window filled with text will appear.
To the left of the last line you should see (base).
At this point you are not inside a virtual environment.

YOLOX will run without a virtual environment, but since environments can conflict with other packages, I recommend creating one.

First, enter the following code to create the virtual environment.

conda create -n YoloX python=3.8

YoloX is the name of the virtual environment; you can use any other name.
You can also specify the Python version with python=3.8.

Then enter the virtual environment with the following code.

conda activate YoloX

If the (base) on the left has changed to (YoloX), you have succeeded.

Installing CUDA

First, if this is your first time installing machine learning libraries and you plan to train YOLO on a GPU, install CUDA.
(Training on a CPU takes an absurdly long time, so I do not recommend it. Note, however, that GPUs cannot currently be used on Apple Silicon machines.)
CUDA can be downloaded from the official site.

As for the CUDA version, I suggest checking which CUDA version PyTorch supports and then installing that version.
PyTorch official site

To install an older version, click Download now and then, on the following screen, scroll down to Resources and use Archive of Previous CUDA Releases.

The latest version may well work too, but for now, matching the version to PyTorch should let you run everything without trouble.

To check whether it is installed on Windows, open “Edit the system environment variables,” go to Advanced > Environment Variables, and
check whether there is a path beginning with CUDA_PATH.
The number after the V indicates the version.

Installing PyTorch

Before installing, update pip.
Enter the virtual environment in Anaconda Prompt and run the following command.

python -m pip install --upgrade pip

Go to the PyTorch official site and select the installation method that matches your environment.
One thing to watch out for is the Package field: here, choose pip.
Installing with conda will cause errors later on.

Copy and paste the command shown under “Run this Command” to install it in your virtual environment.

Once the installation finishes, use the following command to check that PyTorch is installed.

pip list

As long as torch appears in this list, you’re good to go!!!
Just to make sure everything works, launch python and run the following command.

import torch
print(torch.cuda.is_available())

If the output is True, the installation went through without problems and torch is ready to run on the GPU.
(On a Mac or on a computer without a GPU, you will get False, but as long as the import works you’re fine.)
If you get an error, go back and check the installation again.

Installing the packages required for YOLOX

Download (clone) the various YOLOX files from GitHub.
If you can use Git commands, you can clone it with the code below.

git clone git@github.com:Megvii-BaseDetection/YOLOX.git

Next, navigate into the cloned folder and install the required packages.

First, edit the contents of requirements.txt in the cloned YOLOX folder as follows.

# TODO: Update with exact module version
numpy
#torch>=1.7
opencv_python
loguru
tqdm
#torchvision
thop
ninja
tabulate

# verified versions
# pycocotools corresponds to https://github.com/ppwwyyxx/cocoapi
#pycocotools>=2.0.2
#onnx==1.8.1
onnxruntime==1.8.0
onnx-simplifier==0.3.5

It seems that packages such as pycocotools cannot be installed with this command.

Once you’ve done that, save requirements.txt and run the command below in the terminal (Anaconda prompt).

cd YOLOX
pip3 install -r requirements.txt
pip3 install cython pycocotools

The YOLOX folder you downloaded contains a file called “requirements.txt” that lists the required packages. The second command opens this file in read-only mode and installs the packages listed in it.

pip3 install cython pycocotools

This command installs cython and pycocotools.
It appears these need to be installed separately.

When you run this command, some of you may see the following error.

      building 'pycocotools._mask' extension
      error: Microsoft Visual C++ 14.0 or greater is required. Get it with "Microsoft C++ Build Tools": https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/visual-cpp-build-tools/

Apparently pycocotools requires Microsoft C++ Build Tools. (Even though there is no Mac version, the error still shows up on Mac.)
If you’re on Windows, it’s a good idea to install it just in case.

Install it, then try installing again with the code below.

pip3 install "git+https://github.com/philferriere/cocoapi.git#egg=pycocotools&subdirectory=PythonAPI"

If that still doesn’t work, install it with the following command.

conda install -c conda-forge pycocotools

In general we’ve been installing these packages with pip, but since this one simply won’t install that way, we fall back on the last resort of installing it with conda.

Next, download yolox_x.pth.
The download starts as soon as you click the link.

Move the downloaded file into the YOLOX folder you cloned from GitHub.
This gives you the model used for detection in the demo, placed wherever you like.

Add the following lines near the top of tools/demo.py so that the script can access the yolox folder.

#demo.pyの中身に書き込みましょう。
import sys
import os
sys.path.append(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), '..'))

Without this, you will get an error saying that the yolox package cannot be found.

Then run the following command in the terminal.
This lets you check whether the demo runs correctly.

python tools/demo.py image -n yolox-x -c yolox_x.pth --path assets/dog.jpg --conf 0.25 --nms 0.45 --tsize 640 --save_result --device gpu 
#gpuで動かさない場合には、gpuをcpuに書き換えてください。

Change –device gpu to –device cpu as appropriate for your setup.

You should now find the following image inside YOLOX/YOLOX_outputs/yolox_x/vis_res/20……..

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