Investigating the latent space of a neural network can provide useful insights into the structure of your data and what models have learned during training. Slideflow provides several tools for post-hoc latent space analysis of trained neural networks, primarily by calculating activations at one or more neural network layers for all images in a dataset. In the next sections, we will take a look at how these layer activations can be calculated for downstream analysis and provide examples of analyses that can be performed.
Activations at one or more layers of a trained network can be calculated with :class:`slideflow.model.Features` and :class:`slideflow.DatasetFeatures`. The former provides an interface for calculating layer activations for a batch of images, and the latter supervises calculations across an entire dataset.
:class:`Features` provides an interface for calculating layer activations and predictions on a batch of images. The following arguments are available:
If layers is not supplied, activations at the post-convolutional layer will be calculated by default.
Once initialized, the resulting object can be called on a batch of images and will return the layer activations for all images in the batch. For example, to calculate activations at the sep_conv_3 layer of a model while looping through a dataset:
import slideflow as sf sepconv3 = sf.model.Features('model/path', layer='sep_conv_3') for img_batch in dataset: postconv_activations = sepconv3(img_batch)
If layer is a list of layer names, activations at each layer will be calculated and concatenated. If include_preds is True, the interface will also return the final predictions:
sepconv3_and_preds = sf.model.Features(..., include_preds=True) layer_activations, preds = sepconv3_and_preds(img_batch)
Note
:class:`Features` assumes that image batches already have any necessary preprocessing already applied, including standardization and stain normalization.
See the API documentation for :class:`Features` for more information.
Layer activations can also be calculated across an entire slide using the same :class:`Features` interface. Calling the object on a :class:`slideflow.WSI` object will generate a grid of activations of size (slide.grid.shape[0], slide.grid.shape[1], num_features):
import slideflow as sf slide = sf.WSI(...) postconv = sf.model.Features('/model/path', layers='postconv') feature_grid = postconv(slide) print(feature_grid.shape)
Finally, layer activations can also be calculated for an entire dataset using :class:`slideflow.DatasetFeatures`. Instancing the class supervises the calculation and caching of layer activations, which can then be used for downstream analysis. The project function :func:`slideflow.Project.generate_features` creates and returns an instance of this class.
dts_ftrs = P.generate_features('/path/to/trained_model')
Alternatively, you can create an instance of this class directly:
import slideflow as sf dataset = P.dataset(tile_px=299, tile_um=302) dts_ftrs = sf.DatasetFeatures( model='/path/to/trained_model', dataset=dataset, )
Tile-level feature activations for each slide can be accessed directly from DatasetFeatures.activations, a dict mapping slide names to numpy arrays of shape (num_tiles, num_features). Predictions are stored in DatasetFeatures.predictions, a dict mapping slide names to numpy arrays of shape (num_tiles, num_classes). Tile-level location data (coordinates from which the tiles were taken from their respective source slides) is stored in DatasetFeatures.locations, a dict mapping slide names to numpy arrays of shape (num_tiles, 2) (x, y).
Activations can be exported to a Pandas DataFrame with :meth:`slideflow.DatasetFeatures.to_df` or exported into PyTorch format with :meth:`slideflow.DatasetFeatures.to_torch`. See :ref:`features` for more information about generating and exporting features for MIL models.
Read the API documentation for :class:`slideflow.DatasetFeatures` for more information.
Layer activations across a dataset can be dimensionality reduced with UMAP and plotted for visualization using :meth:`slideflow.DatasetFeatures.map_activations`. This function returns an instance of :class:`slideflow.SlideMap`, a class that provides easy access to labeling and plotting.
The below example calculates layer activations at the neural network layer sep_conv_3 for an entire dataset, and then reduces the activations into two dimensions for easy visualization using UMAP. Any valid UMAP parameters can be passed via keyword argument.
dts_ftrs = P.generate_features( model='/path/to/trained_model', layers='sep_conv_3' ) slide_map = dts_ftrs.map_activations( n_neighbors=10, # UMAP parameter min_dist=0.2 # UMAP parameter )
We can then plot the activations with :meth:`slideflow.SlideMap.plot`. All keyword arguments are passed to the matplotlib scatter function.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt slide_map.plot(s=10) plt.show()
We can add labels to our plot by first passing a dictionary with slide labels to the function :meth:`slideflow.SlideMap.label_by_slide`.
# Get a dictionary mapping slide names to category labels dataset = P.dataset(tile_px=299, tile_um='10x') labels, unique_labels = dataset.labels('subtype', format='name') # Assign the labels to the slide map, then plot slide_map.label_by_slide(labels) slide_map.plot()
Finally, we can use :meth:`SlideMap.umap_transform` to project new data into two dimensions using the previously fit UMAP.
import slideflow as sf import numpy as np # Create a SlideMap using layer activations reduced with UMAP dts_ftrs = P.generate_features( model='/path/to/trained_model', layers='sep_conv_3' ) slide_map = dts_ftrs.map_activations() # Load some dummy data. # Second dimension must match size of activation vector. dummy = np.random.random((100, 1024)) # Transform the data using the already-fit UMAP. transformed = slide_map.umap_transform(dummy) print(transformed.shape)
Read more about additional :class:`slideflow.SlideMap` functions, including saving, loading, and clustering, in the linked API documentation.
Mosaic maps provide a tool for visualizing the distribution of histologic image features in a dataset through analysis of neural network layer activations. Similar to activation atlases, a mosaic map is generated by first calculating layer activations for a dataset, dimensionality reducing these activations with UMAP, and then overlaying corresponding images in a grid-wise fashion.
In the previous sections, we reviewed how to calculate layer activations across a dataset, and then dimensionality reduce these activations into two dimensions using UMAP. :class:`slideflow.Mosaic` provides a tool for converting these activation maps into a grid of image tiles plotted according to their associated activation vectors.
The fastest way to build a mosaic map is using :class:`slideflow.Project.generate_mosaic`, which requires a DatasetFeatures object as its only mandatory argument and returns an instance of :class:`slideflow.Mosaic`.
dts_ftrs = P.generate_features('/path/to/trained_model', layers='postconv') mosaic = P.generate_mosaic(dts_ftrs) mosaic.save('mosaic.png')
When created with this interface, the underlying :class:`slideflow.SlideMap` object used to create the mosaic map is accessible via slideflow.Mosaic.slide_map. You could, for example, use :func:`slideflow.SlideMap.save` to save the UMAP plot:
mosiac.slide_map.save('umap.png')
Any SlideMap can be converted to a mosaic map with :meth:`slideflow.SlideMap.generate_mosaic()`.
ftrs = P.generate_features('/path/to/model') slide_map = ftrs.map_activations() mosaic = slide_map.generate_mosaic() mosaic.save('mosaic.png')
Mosaic maps can be flexibly created with :class:`slideflow.Mosaic`, requiring two components: a set of images and corresponding coordinates. Images and coordinates can either be manually provided, or the mosaic can dynamically read images from TFRecords (as is done with :meth:`Project.generate_mosaic()`).
The first argument of :class:`slideflow.Mosaic` provides the images, and may be either of the following:
The second argument provides the coordinates:
For example, to create a mosaic map from a list of images and coordinates:
# Example data (images are HxWxC, np.ndarray) images = [np.ndarray(...), ...] coords = [(0.2, 0.9), ...] # Generate the mosaic mosaic = Mosaic(images, coordinates) mosaic.plot()
You can also generate a mosaic map where the images are tuples of (tfrecord, tfrecord_index). In this case, the mosaic map will dynamically read images from TFRecords during plotting.
# Example data tfrecords = ['/path/to/tfrecord`.tfrecords', ...] idx = [253, 112, ...] coords = [(0.2, 0.9), ...] # Generate mosaic map mosaic = sf.Mosaic( images=[(tfr, idx) for tfr, idx in zip(tfrecords, idx)], coords=coords )
There are several additional arguments that can be used to customize the mosaic map plotting. Read the linked API documentation for :class:`slideflow.Mosaic` for more information.