# Using DeepChem with Tensorflow Data and Estimators¶

When DeepChem was first created, Tensorflow had no standard interface for datasets or models. We created the Dataset and Model classes to fill this hole. More recently, Tensorflow has added the tf.data module as a standard interface for datasets, and the tf.estimator module as a standard interface for models. To enable easy interoperability with other tools, we have added features to Dataset and Model to support these new standards.

This example demonstrates how to use these features. Let’s begin by loading a dataset and creating a model to analyze it. We’ll use a simple MultiTaskClassifier with one hidden layer.

import deepchem as dc
import tensorflow as tf
import numpy as np

train_dataset, valid_dataset, test_dataset = datasets
n_features = train_dataset.X.shape[1]


Loading dataset from disk.


We want to train the model using the training set, then evaluate it on the test set. As our evaluation metric we will use the ROC AUC, averaged over the 12 tasks included in the dataset. First let’s see how to do this with the DeepChem API.

model.fit(train_dataset, nb_epoch=100)
metric = dc.metrics.Metric(dc.metrics.roc_auc_score, np.mean)
print(model.evaluate(test_dataset, [metric]))

computed_metrics: [0.7081719239992621, 0.865129545326814, 0.836842947009276, 0.7701224617961064, 0.7081635765485087, 0.7911911911911912, 0.7207671300893743, 0.6592307518932563, 0.7976869777868352, 0.7409154581410679, 0.8243317675424011, 0.7112435328898743]
{'mean-roc_auc_score': 0.7611497720178306}


Simple enough. Now let’s see how to do the same thing with the Tensorflow APIs. Fair warning: this is going to take a lot more code!

To begin with, Tensorflow doesn’t allow a dataset to be passed directly to a model. Instead, you need to write an “input function” to construct a particular set of tensors and return them in a particular format. Fortunately, Dataset’s make_iterator() method provides exactly the tensors we need in the form of a tf.data.Iterator. This allows our input function to be very simple.

def input_fn(dataset, epochs):
x, y, weights = dataset.make_iterator(batch_size=100, epochs=epochs).get_next()
return {'x': x, 'weights': weights}, y


Next, you have to use the functions in the tf.feature_column module to create an object representing each feature and weight column (but curiously, not the label column—don’t ask me why!). These objects describe the data type and shape of each column, and give each one a name. The names must match the keys in the dict returned by the input function.

x_col = tf.feature_column.numeric_column('x', shape=(n_features,))
weight_col = tf.feature_column.numeric_column('weights', shape=(n_tasks,))


Unlike DeepChem models, which allow arbitrary metrics to be passed to evaluate(), estimators require all metrics to be defined up front when you create the estimator. Unfortunately, Tensorflow doesn’t have very good support for multitask models. It provides an AUC metric, but no easy way to average this metric over tasks. We therefore must create a separate metric for every task, then define our own metric function to compute the average of them.

def mean_auc(labels, predictions, weights):
metric_ops = []
update_ops = []
for i in range(n_tasks):
metric, update = tf.metrics.auc(labels[:,i], predictions[:,i], weights[:,i])
metric_ops.append(metric)
update_ops.append(update)
mean_metric = tf.reduce_mean(tf.stack(metric_ops))
update_all = tf.group(*update_ops)
return mean_metric, update_all


Now we create our Estimator by calling make_estimator() on the DeepChem model. We provide as arguments the objects created above to represent the feature and weight columns, as well as our metric function.

estimator = model.make_estimator(feature_columns=[x_col],
weight_column=weight_col,
metrics={'mean_auc': mean_auc},
model_dir='estimator')

INFO:tensorflow:Using default config.
INFO:tensorflow:Using config: {'_model_dir': 'estimator', '_tf_random_seed': None, '_save_summary_steps': 100, '_save_checkpoints_steps': None, '_save_checkpoints_secs': 600, '_session_config': None, '_keep_checkpoint_max': 5, '_keep_checkpoint_every_n_hours': 10000, '_log_step_count_steps': 100, '_service': None, '_cluster_spec': <tensorflow.python.training.server_lib.ClusterSpec object at 0x12d39bef0>, '_task_type': 'worker', '_task_id': 0, '_master': '', '_is_chief': True, '_num_ps_replicas': 0, '_num_worker_replicas': 1}


We are finally ready to train and evaluate it! Notice how the input function passed to each method is actually a lambda. This allows us to write a single function, then use it with different datasets and numbers of epochs.

estimator.train(input_fn=lambda: input_fn(train_dataset, 100))
print(estimator.evaluate(input_fn=lambda: input_fn(test_dataset, 1)))

INFO:tensorflow:Create CheckpointSaverHook.
INFO:tensorflow:Saving checkpoints for 1 into estimator/model.ckpt.
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 1716.8385, step = 1
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 63.5117
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 804.13416, step = 101 (1.576 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 41.9688
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 682.90265, step = 201 (2.383 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 65.7841
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 805.00336, step = 301 (1.520 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 42.4989
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 466.05975, step = 401 (2.353 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 65.1989
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 704.69446, step = 501 (1.534 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 40.9395
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 450.0899, step = 601 (2.443 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 41.2419
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 349.05804, step = 701 (2.424 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 60.7104
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 338.63837, step = 801 (1.647 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 40.4742
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 351.22452, step = 901 (2.471 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 63.2702
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 325.0889, step = 1001 (1.581 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 42.8089
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 334.04944, step = 1101 (2.336 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 41.0803
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 299.88806, step = 1201 (2.434 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 62.1056
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 301.3775, step = 1301 (1.610 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 41.056
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 345.18347, step = 1401 (2.436 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 61.8764
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 220.67397, step = 1501 (1.616 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 39.5263
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 232.79745, step = 1601 (2.529 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 63.3011
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 185.26181, step = 1701 (1.580 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 40.9611
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 188.3253, step = 1801 (2.441 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 41.6845
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 190.70108, step = 1901 (2.399 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 64.629
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 162.53293, step = 2001 (1.547 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 42.2537
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 161.35915, step = 2101 (2.367 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 64.5807
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 145.4078, step = 2201 (1.548 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 41.9227
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 120.111115, step = 2301 (2.385 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 42.6787
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 151.61371, step = 2401 (2.343 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 63.3021
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 136.98262, step = 2501 (1.580 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 42.6588
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 89.13097, step = 2601 (2.344 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 64.7405
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 101.06474, step = 2701 (1.545 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 43.2237
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 116.96815, step = 2801 (2.314 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 43.4182
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 84.83482, step = 2901 (2.303 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 65.1042
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 145.16194, step = 3001 (1.536 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 42.3864
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 92.99321, step = 3101 (2.359 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 64.7556
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 65.05712, step = 3201 (1.544 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 42.6498
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 78.92055, step = 3301 (2.345 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 65.4527
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 77.93735, step = 3401 (1.528 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 42.8958
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 57.02035, step = 3501 (2.332 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 43.3849
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 95.91443, step = 3601 (2.305 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 65.1448
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 75.03122, step = 3701 (1.535 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 42.6941
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 62.8435, step = 3801 (2.342 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 65.2233
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 45.883224, step = 3901 (1.533 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 43.4815
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 57.56656, step = 4001 (2.300 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 41.5674
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 70.33858, step = 4101 (2.406 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 58.5978
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 67.34745, step = 4201 (1.707 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 39.8156
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 46.03079, step = 4301 (2.511 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 60.5059
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 40.959454, step = 4401 (1.653 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 41.7228
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 36.393044, step = 4501 (2.397 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 42.4976
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 46.14415, step = 4601 (2.353 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 66.1396
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 41.93784, step = 4701 (1.512 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 42.5402
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 29.39001, step = 4801 (2.351 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 65.0227
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 29.608704, step = 4901 (1.538 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 43.692
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 43.265915, step = 5001 (2.289 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 65.8827
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 41.69668, step = 5101 (1.518 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 42.4384
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 28.208687, step = 5201 (2.356 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 42.4864
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 34.643417, step = 5301 (2.354 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 66.223
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 46.616447, step = 5401 (1.510 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 42.0575
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 42.339645, step = 5501 (2.378 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 65.1812
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 94.012146, step = 5601 (1.534 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 43.1405
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 25.879742, step = 5701 (2.318 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 43.209
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 35.351685, step = 5801 (2.314 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 65.5692
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 12.110611, step = 5901 (1.525 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 42.3864
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 19.612688, step = 6001 (2.359 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 65.1961
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 31.003126, step = 6101 (1.534 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:global_step/sec: 42.9087
INFO:tensorflow:loss = 21.030697, step = 6201 (2.330 sec)
INFO:tensorflow:Saving checkpoints for 6300 into estimator/model.ckpt.
INFO:tensorflow:Loss for final step: 19.216248.
INFO:tensorflow:Starting evaluation at 2018-03-06-22:55:47
INFO:tensorflow:Restoring parameters from estimator/model.ckpt-6300
INFO:tensorflow:Finished evaluation at 2018-03-06-22:55:49
INFO:tensorflow:Saving dict for global step 6300: global_step = 6300, loss = 6348.7153, mean_auc = 0.7047531
{'loss': 6348.7153, 'mean_auc': 0.7047531, 'global_step': 6300}


That’s a lot of code for something DeepChem can do in three lines. The Tensorflow API is verbose and somewhat confusing. It has seemingly arbitrary limitations, like assuming a model will only ever have one output, and therefore only allowing one label. But for better or worse, it’s a standard.

Of course, if you just want to use a DeepChem model with a DeepChem dataset, there is no need for any of this. Just use the DeepChem API. But perhaps you want to use a DeepChem dataset with a model that has been implemented as an estimator. In that case, Dataset.make_iterator() allows you to easily do that. Or perhaps you have higher level workflow code that is written to work with estimators. In that case, make_estimator() allows DeepChem models to easily fit into that workflow.