Amazon Lookout for Vision provides a machine learning (ML)-based anomaly detection service to identify normal images (i.e., images of objects without defects) vs anomalous images (i.e., images of objects with defects), types of anomalies (e.g., missing piece), and the location of these anomalies. Therefore, Lookout for Vision is popular among customers that look for automated solutions for industrial quality inspection (e.g., detecting abnormal products). However, customers’ datasets usually face two problems:

The number of images with anomalies could be very low and might not reach anomalies/defect type minimum imposed by Lookout for Vision (~20).
Normal images might not have enough diversity and might result in the model failing when environmental conditions such as lighting change in production

To overcome these problems, this post introduces an image augmentation pipeline that targets both problems: It provides a way to generate synthetic anomalous images by removing objects in images and generates additional normal images by introducing controlled augmentation such as gaussian noise, hue, saturation, pixel value scaling etc. We use the imgaug library to introduce augmentation to generate additional anomalous and normal images for the second problem. We use Amazon Sagemaker Ground Truth to generate object removal masks and the LaMa algorithm to remove objects for the first problem using image inpainting (object removal) techniques.

The rest of the post is organized as follows. In Section 3, we present the image augmentation pipeline for normal images. In Section 4, we present the image augmentation pipeline for abnormal images (aka synthetic defect generation). Section 5 illustrates the Lookout for Vision training results using the augmented dataset. Section 6 demonstrates how the Lookout for Vision model trained on synthetic data perform against real defects. In Section 7, we talk about cost estimation for this solution. All of the code we used for this post can be accessed here.

1. Solution overview

ML diagram

The following is the diagram of the proposed image augmentation pipeline for Lookout for Vision anomaly localization model training:

The diagram above starts by collecting a series of images (step 1). We augment the dataset by augmenting the normal images (step 3) and by using object removal algorithms (steps 2, 5-6). We then package the data in a format that can be consumed by Amazon Lookout for Vision (steps 7-8). Finally, in step 9, we use the packaged data to train a Lookout for Vision localization model.

This image augmentation pipeline gives customers flexibility to generate synthetic defects in the limited sample dataset, as well as add more quantity and variety to normal images. It would boost the performance of Lookout for Vision service, solving the lack of customer data issue and making the automated quality inspection process smoother.

2. Data preparation

From here to the end of the post, we use the public FICS-PCB: A Multi-Modal Image Dataset for Automated Printed Circuit Board Visual Inspection dataset licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License to illustrate the image augmentation pipeline and the consequent Lookout for Vision training and testing. This dataset is designed to support the evaluation of automated PCB visual inspection systems. It was collected at the SeCurity and AssuraNce (SCAN) lab at the University of Florida. It can be accessed here.

We start with the hypothesis that the customer only provides a single normal image of a PCB board (a s10 PCB sample) as the dataset. It can be seen as follows:

3. Image augmentation for normal images

The Lookout for Vision service requires at least 20 normal images and 20 anomalies per defect type. Since there is only one normal image from the sample data, we must generate more normal images using image augmentation techniques. From the ML standpoint, feeding multiple image transformations using different augmentation techniques can improve the accuracy and robustness of the model.

We’ll use imgaug for image augmentation of normal images. Imgaug is an open-source python package that lets you augment images in ML experiments.

First, we’ll install the imgaug library in an Amazon SageMaker notebook.

Next, we can install the python package named ‘IPyPlot’.

Then, we perform image augmentation of the original image using transformations including GammaContrast, SigmoidContrast, and LinearContrast, and adding Gaussian noise on the image.

Since we need at least 20 normal images, and the more the better, we generated 10 augmented images for each of the 4 transformations shown above as our normal image dataset. In the future, we plan to also transform the images to be positioned at difference locations and different angels so that the trained model can be less sensitive to the placement of the object relative to the fixed camera.

4. Synthetic defect generation for augmentation of abnormal images

In this section, we present a synthetic defect generation pipeline to augment the number of  images with anomalies in the dataset. Note that, as opposed to the previous section where we create new normal samples from existing normal samples, here, we create new anomaly images from normal samples. This is an attractive feature for customers that completely lack this kind of images in their datasets, e.g., removing a component of the normal PCB board. This synthetic defect generation pipeline has three steps: first, we generate synthetic masks from source (normal) images using Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth. In this post, we target at a specific defect type: missing component. This mask generation provides a mask image and a manifest file. Second, the manifest file must be modified and converted to an input file for a SageMaker endpoint. And third, the input file is input to an Object Removal SageMaker endpoint responsible of removing the parts of the normal image indicated by the mask. This endpoint provides the resulting abnormal image.

4.1 Generate synthetic defect masks using Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth

Amazon Sagemaker Ground Truth for data labeling

Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth is a data labeling service that makes it easy to label data and gives you the option to use human annotators through Amazon Mechanical Turk, third-party vendors, or your own private workforce. You can follow this tutorial to set up a labeling job.

In this section, we’ll show how we use Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth to mark specific “components” in normal images to be removed in the next step. Note that a key contribution of this post is that we don’t use Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth in its traditional way (that is, to label training images). Here, we use it to generate a mask for future removal in normal images. These removals in normal images will generate the synthetic defects.

For the purpose of this post, in our labeling job we’ll artificially remove up to three components from the PCB board: IC, resistor1, and resistor2. After entering the labeling job as a labeler, you can select the label name and draw a mask of any shape around the component that you want to remove from the image as a synthetic defect. Note that you can’t include ‘_’ in the label name for this experiment, since we use ‘_’ to separate different metadata in the defect name later in the code.

In the following picture, we draw a green mask around IC (Integrated Circuit), a blue mask around resistor 1, and an orange mask around resistor 2.

After we select the submit button, Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth will generate an output mask with white background and a manifest file as follows:

Note that so far we haven’t generated any abnormal images. We just marked the three components that will be artificially removed and whose removal will generate abnormal images. Later, we’ll use both (1) the mask image above, and (2) the information from the manifest file as inputs for the abnormal image generation pipeline. The next section shows how to prepare the input for the SageMaker endpoint.

4.2 Prepare Input for SageMaker endpoint

Transform Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth manifest as a SageMaker endpoint input file

First, we set up an Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) bucket to store all of the input and output for the image augmentation pipeline. In the post, we use an S3 bucket named qualityinspection. Then we generate all of the augmented normal images and upload them to this S3 bucket.

Next, we download the mask from Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth and upload it to a folder named ‘mask’ in that S3 bucket.

After that, we download the manifest file from Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth labeling job and read it as json lines.

Lastly, we generate an input dictionary which records the input image’s S3 location, mask location, mask information, etc., save it as txt file, and then upload it to the target S3 bucket ‘input’ folder.

The following is a sample input file:

4.3 Create Asynchronous SageMaker endpoint to generate synthetic defects with missing components

4.3.1 LaMa Model

To remove components from the original image, we’re using an open-source PyTorch model called LaMa from LaMa: Resolution-robust Large Mask Inpainting with Fourier Convolutions. It’s a resolution-robust large mask in-painting model with Fourier convolutions developed by Samsung AI. The inputs for the model are an image and a black and white mask and the output is an image with the objects inside the mask removed. We use Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth to create the original mask, and then transform it to a black and white mask as required. The LaMa model application is demonstrated as following:

4.3.2 Introducing Amazon SageMaker Asynchronous inference 

Amazon SageMaker Asynchronous Inference is a new inference option in Amazon SageMaker that queues incoming requests and processes them asynchronously. Asynchronous inference enables users to save on costs by autoscaling the instance count to zero when there are no requests to process. This means that you only pay when your endpoint is processing requests. The new asynchronous inference option is ideal for workloads where the request sizes are large (up to 1GB) and inference processing times are in the order of minutes. The code to deploy and invoke the endpoint is here.

4.3.3 Endpoint deployment

To deploy the asynchronous endpoint, first we must get the IAM role and set up some environment variables.

As we mentioned before, we’re using open source PyTorch model LaMa: Resolution-robust Large Mask Inpainting with Fourier Convolutions and the pre-trained model has been uploaded to s3://qualityinspection/model/big-lama.tar.gz. The image_uri points to a docker container with the required framework and python versions.

Then, we must specify additional asynchronous inference specific configuration parameters while creating the endpoint configuration.

Next, we deploy the endpoint on a ml.g4dn.xlarge instance by running the following code:

After approximately 6-8 minutes, the endpoint is created successfully, and it will show up in the SageMaker console.

4.3.4 Invoke the endpoint

Next, we use the input txt file we generated earlier as the input of the endpoint and invoke the endpoint using the following code:

The above command will finish execution immediately. However, the inference will continue for several minutes until it completes all of the tasks and returns all of the outputs in the S3 bucket.

4.3.5 Check the inference result of the endpoint 

After you select the endpoint, you’ll see the Monitor session. Select ‘View logs’ to check the inference results in the console.

Two log records will show up in Log streams. The one named data-log will show the final inference result, while the other log record will show the details of the inference, which is usually used for debug purposes.

If the inference request succeeds, then you’ll see the message: Inference request succeeded.in the data-log and also get information of the total model latency, total process time, etc. in the message. If the inference fails, then check the other log to debug. You can also check the result by polling the status of the inference request. Learn more about the Amazon SageMaker Asynchronous inference here.

4.3.6 Generating synthetic defects with missing components using the endpoint

We’ll complete four tasks in the endpoint:

The Lookout for Vision anomaly localization service requires one defect per image in the training dataset to optimize model performance. Therefore, we must separate the masks for different defects in the endpoint by color filtering.

Split train/test dataset to satisfy the following requirement:

at least 10 normal images and 10 anomalies for train dataset
one defect/image in train dataset
at least 10 normal images and 10 anomalies for test dataset
multiple defects per image is allowed for the test dataset

Generate synthetic defects and upload them to the target S3 locations.

We generate one defect per image and more than 20 defects per class for train dataset, as well as 1-3 defects per image and more than 20 defects per class for the test dataset.

The following is an example of the source image and its synthetic defects with three components: IC, resistor1, and resistor 2 missing.

original image

40_im_mask_IC_resistor1_resistor2.jpg (the defect name indicates the missing components)

 Generate manifest files for train/test dataset recording all of the above information.

Finally, we’ll generate train/test manifests to record information, such as synthetic defect S3 location, mask S3 location, defect class, mask color, etc.

The following are sample json lines for an anomaly and a normal image in the manifest.

For anomaly:

Share to your network: