Linear regression is a simple yet powerful technique for predicting the values of variables based on other variables. It is often used for modeling relationships between two or more continuous variables, such as the relationship between income and age, or the relationship between weight and height. Likewise, linear regression can be used to predict continuous outcomes such as price or quantity demand, based on other variables that are known to influence these outcomes.

In order to train a linear regression model, we need to define a cost function and an optimizer. The cost function is used to measure how well our model fits the data, while the optimizer decides which direction to move in order to improve this fit.

While in the previous tutorial you learned how we can make simple predictions with only a linear regression forward pass, here you’ll train a linear regression model and update its learning parameters using PyTorch. Particularly, you’ll learn:

How you can build a simple linear regression model from scratch in PyTorch.
How you can apply a simple linear regression model on a dataset.
How a simple linear regression model can be trained on a single learnable parameter.
How a simple linear regression model can be trained on two learnable parameters.

So, let’s get started.

Overview

This tutorial is in four parts; they are

Preparing Data
Building the Model and Loss Function
Training the Model for a Single Parameter
Training the Model for Two Parameters

Preparing Data

Let’s import a few libraries we’ll use in this tutorial and make some data for our experiments.

import torch
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

We will use synthetic data to train the linear regression model. We’ll initialize a variable X with values from $-5$ to $5$ and create a linear function that has a slope of $-5$. Note that this function will be estimated by our trained model later.

…
# Creating a function f(X) with a slope of -5
X = torch.arange(-5, 5, 0.1).view(-1, 1)
func = -5 * X

Also, we’ll see how our data looks like in a line plot, using matplotlib.

…
# Plot the line in red with grids
plt.plot(X.numpy(), func.numpy(), ‘r’, label=’func’)
plt.xlabel(‘x’)
plt.ylabel(‘y’)
plt.legend()
plt.grid(‘True’, color=’y’)
plt.show()

As we need to simulate the real data we just created, let’s add some Gaussian noise to it in order to create noisy data of the same size as $X$, keeping the value of standard deviation at 0.4. This will be done by using torch.randn(X.size()).

…
# Adding Gaussian noise to the function f(X) and saving it in Y
Y = func + 0.4 * torch.randn(X.size())

Now, let’s visualize these data points using below lines of code.

# Plot and visualizing the data points in blue
plt.plot(X.numpy(), Y.numpy(), ‘b+’, label=’Y’)
plt.plot(X.numpy(), func.numpy(), ‘r’, label=’func’)
plt.xlabel(‘x’)
plt.ylabel(‘y’)
plt.legend()
plt.grid(‘True’, color=’y’)
plt.show()

Putting all together, the following is the complete code.

import torch
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

# Creating a function f(X) with a slope of -5
X = torch.arange(-5, 5, 0.1).view(-1, 1)
func = -5 * X

# Adding Gaussian noise to the function f(X) and saving it in Y
Y = func + 0.4 * torch.randn(X.size())

# Plot and visualizing the data points in blue
plt.plot(X.numpy(), Y.numpy(), ‘b+’, label=’Y’)
plt.plot(X.numpy(), func.numpy(), ‘r’, label=’func’)
plt.xlabel(‘x’)
plt.ylabel(‘y’)
plt.legend()
plt.grid(‘True’, color=’y’)
plt.show()

Building the Model and Loss Function

We created the data to feed into the model, next we’ll build a forward function based on a simple linear regression equation. Note that we’ll build the model to train only a single parameter ($w$) here. Later, in the sext section of the tutorial, we’ll add the bias and train the model for two parameters ($w$ and $b$). The function for the forward pass of the model is defined as follows:

# defining the function for forward pass for prediction
def forward(x):
return w * x

In training steps, we’ll need a criterion to measure the loss between the original and the predicted data points. This information is crucial for gradient descent optimization operations of the model and updated after every iteration in order to calculate the gradients and minimize the loss. Usually, linear regression is used for continuous data where Mean Square Error (MSE) effectively calculates the model loss. Therefore MSE metric is the criterion function we use here.

# evaluating data points with Mean Square Error.
def criterion(y_pred, y):
return torch.mean((y_pred – y) ** 2)

Training the Model for a Single Parameter

With all these preparations, we are ready for model training. First, the parameter $w$ need to be initialized randomly, for example, to the value $-10$.

w = torch.tensor(-10.0, requires_grad=True)

Next, we’ll define the learning rate or the step size, an empty list to store the loss after each iteration, and the number of iterations we want our model to train for. While the step size is set at 0.1, we train the model for 20 iterations per epochs.

step_size = 0.1
loss_list = []
iter = 20

When below lines of code is executed, the forward() function takes an input and generates a prediction. The criterian() function calculates the loss and stores it in loss variable. Based on the model loss, the backward() method computes the gradients and w.data stores the updated parameters.

for i in range (iter):
# making predictions with forward pass
Y_pred = forward(X)
# calculating the loss between original and predicted data points
loss = criterion(Y_pred, Y)
# storing the calculated loss in a list
loss_list.append(loss.item())
# backward pass for computing the gradients of the loss w.r.t to learnable parameters
loss.backward()
# updateing the parameters after each iteration
w.data = w.data – step_size * w.grad.data
# zeroing gradients after each iteration
w.grad.data.zero_()
# priting the values for understanding
print(‘{},t{},t{}’.format(i, loss.item(), w.item()))

The output of the model training is printed as under. As you can see, model loss reduces after every iteration and the trainable parameter (which in this case is $w$) is updated.

0, 207.40255737304688, -1.6875505447387695
1, 92.3563003540039, -7.231954097747803
2, 41.173553466796875, -3.5338361263275146
3, 18.402894973754883, -6.000481128692627
4, 8.272472381591797, -4.355228900909424
5, 3.7655599117279053, -5.452612400054932
6, 1.7604843378067017, -4.7206573486328125
7, 0.8684477210044861, -5.208871364593506
8, 0.471589595079422, -4.883232593536377
9, 0.2950323224067688, -5.100433826446533
10, 0.21648380160331726, -4.955560684204102
11, 0.1815381944179535, -5.052190780639648
12, 0.16599132120609283, -4.987738609313965
13, 0.15907476842403412, -5.030728340148926
14, 0.15599775314331055, -5.002054214477539
15, 0.15462875366210938, -5.021179676055908
16, 0.15401971340179443, -5.008423328399658
17, 0.15374873578548431, -5.016931533813477
18, 0.15362821519374847, -5.011256694793701
19, 0.15357455611228943, -5.015041828155518

Let’s also visualize via the plot to see how the loss reduces.

# Plotting the loss after each iteration
plt.plot(loss_list, ‘r’)
plt.tight_layout()
plt.grid(‘True’, color=’y’)
plt.xlabel(“Epochs/Iterations”)
plt.ylabel(“Loss”)
plt.show()

Putting everything together, the following is the complete code:

import torch
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

X = torch.arange(-5, 5, 0.1).view(-1, 1)
func = -5 * X
Y = func + 0.4 * torch.randn(X.size())

# defining the function for forward pass for prediction
def forward(x):
return w * x

# evaluating data points with Mean Square Error
def criterion(y_pred, y):
return torch.mean((y_pred – y) ** 2)

w = torch.tensor(-10.0, requires_grad=True)

step_size = 0.1
loss_list = []
iter = 20

for i in range (iter):
# making predictions with forward pass
Y_pred = forward(X)
# calculating the loss between original and predicted data points
loss = criterion(Y_pred, Y)
# storing the calculated loss in a list
loss_list.append(loss.item())
# backward pass for computing the gradients of the loss w.r.t to learnable parameters
loss.backward()
# updateing the parameters after each iteration
w.data = w.data – step_size * w.grad.data
# zeroing gradients after each iteration
w.grad.data.zero_()
# priting the values for understanding
print(‘{},t{},t{}’.format(i, loss.item(), w.item()))

# Plotting the loss after each iteration
plt.plot(loss_list, ‘r’)
plt.tight_layout()
plt.grid(‘True’, color=’y’)
plt.xlabel(“Epochs/Iterations”)
plt.ylabel(“Loss”)
plt.show()

Training the Model for Two Parameters

Let’s also add bias $b$ to our model and train it for two parameters. First we need to change the forward function to as follows.

# defining the function for forward pass for prediction
def forward(x):
return w * x + b

As we have two parameters $w$ and $b$, we need to initialize both to some random values, such as below.

w = torch.tensor(-10.0, requires_grad = True)
b = torch.tensor(-20.0, requires_grad = True)

While all the other code for training will remain the same as before, we’ll only have to make a few changes for two learnable parameters.

Keeping learning rate at 0.1, lets train our model for two parameters for 20 iterations/epochs.

step_size = 0.1
loss_list = []
iter = 20

for i in range (iter):
# making predictions with forward pass
Y_pred = forward(X)
# calculating the loss between original and predicted data points
loss = criterion(Y_pred, Y)
# storing the calculated loss in a list
loss_list.append(loss.item())
# backward pass for computing the gradients of the loss w.r.t to learnable parameters
loss.backward()
# updateing the parameters after each iteration
w.data = w.data – step_size * w.grad.data
b.data = b.data – step_size * b.grad.data
# zeroing gradients after each iteration
w.grad.data.zero_()
b.grad.data.zero_()
# priting the values for understanding
print(‘{}, t{}, t{}, t{}’.format(i, loss.item(), w.item(), b.item()))

Here is what we get for output.

0, 598.0744018554688, -1.8875503540039062, -16.046640396118164
1, 344.6290283203125, -7.2590203285217285, -12.802828788757324
2, 203.6309051513672, -3.6438119411468506, -10.261493682861328
3, 122.82559204101562, -6.029742240905762, -8.19227409362793
4, 75.30597686767578, -4.4176344871521, -6.560757637023926
5, 46.759193420410156, -5.476595401763916, -5.2394232749938965
6, 29.318675994873047, -4.757054805755615, -4.19294548034668
7, 18.525297164916992, -5.2265238761901855, -3.3485677242279053
8, 11.781207084655762, -4.90494441986084, -2.677760124206543
9, 7.537606239318848, -5.112729549407959, -2.1378984451293945
10, 4.853880405426025, -4.968738555908203, -1.7080869674682617
11, 3.1505300998687744, -5.060482025146484, -1.3627978563308716
12, 2.0666630268096924, -4.99583625793457, -1.0874838829040527
13, 1.3757448196411133, -5.0362019538879395, -0.8665863275527954
14, 0.9347621202468872, -5.007069110870361, -0.6902718544006348
15, 0.6530535817146301, -5.024737358093262, -0.5489290356636047
16, 0.4729837477207184, -5.011539459228516, -0.43603143095970154
17, 0.3578317165374756, -5.0192131996154785, -0.34558138251304626
18, 0.28417202830314636, -5.013190746307373, -0.27329811453819275
19, 0.23704445362091064, -5.01648473739624, -0.2154112160205841

Similarly we can plot the loss history.

# Plotting the loss after each iteration
plt.plot(loss_list, ‘r’)
plt.tight_layout()
plt.grid(‘True’, color=’y’)
plt.xlabel(“Epochs/Iterations”)
plt.ylabel(“Loss”)
plt.show()

And here is how the plot for the loss looks like.

Putting everything together, this is the complete code.

import torch
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

X = torch.arange(-5, 5, 0.1).view(-1, 1)
func = -5 * X
Y = func + 0.4 * torch.randn(X.size())

# defining the function for forward pass for prediction
def forward(x):
return w * x + b

# evaluating data points with Mean Square Error.
def criterion(y_pred, y):
return torch.mean((y_pred – y) ** 2)

w = torch.tensor(-10.0, requires_grad=True)
b = torch.tensor(-20.0, requires_grad=True)

step_size = 0.1
loss_list = []
iter = 20

for i in range (iter):
# making predictions with forward pass
Y_pred = forward(X)
# calculating the loss between original and predicted data points
loss = criterion(Y_pred, Y)
# storing the calculated loss in a list
loss_list.append(loss.item())
# backward pass for computing the gradients of the loss w.r.t to learnable parameters
loss.backward()
# updateing the parameters after each iteration
w.data = w.data – step_size * w.grad.data
b.data = b.data – step_size * b.grad.data
# zeroing gradients after each iteration
w.grad.data.zero_()
b.grad.data.zero_()
# priting the values for understanding
print(‘{}, t{}, t{}, t{}’.format(i, loss.item(), w.item(), b.item()))

# Plotting the loss after each iteration
plt.plot(loss_list, ‘r’)
plt.tight_layout()
plt.grid(‘True’, color=’y’)
plt.xlabel(“Epochs/Iterations”)
plt.ylabel(“Loss”)
plt.show()

Summary

In this tutorial you learned how you can build and train a simple linear regression model in PyTorch. Particularly, you learned.

How you can build a simple linear regression model from scratch in PyTorch.
How you can apply a simple linear regression model on a dataset.
How a simple linear regression model can be trained on a single learnable parameter.
How a simple linear regression model can be trained on two learnable parameters.

The post Training a Linear Regression Model in PyTorch appeared first on MachineLearningMastery.com.

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