Tensorflow: how to save/restore a model?

Question

After you train a model in Tensorflow:

1. How do you save the trained model?
2. How do you later restore this saved model?

Answer 1

tf.keras Model saving with TF2.0

I see great answers for saving models using TF1.x. I want to provide couple of more pointers in saving tensorflow.keras models which is a little complicated as there are many ways to save a model.

Here I am providing an example of saving a tensorflow.keras model to model_path folder under current directory. This works well with most recent tensorflow (TF2.0). I will update this description if there is any change in near future.

Saving and loading entire model

import tensorflow as tf
from tensorflow import keras
mnist = tf.keras.datasets.mnist

#import data
(x_train, y_train),(x_test, y_test) = mnist.load_data()
x_train, x_test = x_train / 255.0, x_test / 255.0

# create a model
def create_model():
  model = tf.keras.models.Sequential([
    tf.keras.layers.Flatten(input_shape=(28, 28)),
    tf.keras.layers.Dense(512, activation=tf.nn.relu),
    tf.keras.layers.Dropout(0.2),
    tf.keras.layers.Dense(10, activation=tf.nn.softmax)
    ])
# compile the model
  model.compile(optimizer='adam',
              loss='sparse_categorical_crossentropy',
              metrics=['accuracy'])
  return model

# Create a basic model instance
model=create_model()

model.fit(x_train, y_train, epochs=1)
loss, acc = model.evaluate(x_test, y_test,verbose=1)
print("Original model, accuracy: {:5.2f}%".format(100*acc))

# Save entire model to a HDF5 file
model.save('./model_path/my_model.h5')

# Recreate the exact same model, including weights and optimizer.
new_model = keras.models.load_model('./model_path/my_model.h5')
loss, acc = new_model.evaluate(x_test, y_test)
print("Restored model, accuracy: {:5.2f}%".format(100*acc))

Saving and loading model Weights only

If you are interested in saving model weights only and then load weights to restore the model, then

model.fit(x_train, y_train, epochs=5)
loss, acc = model.evaluate(x_test, y_test,verbose=1)
print("Original model, accuracy: {:5.2f}%".format(100*acc))

# Save the weights
model.save_weights('./checkpoints/my_checkpoint')

# Restore the weights
model = create_model()
model.load_weights('./checkpoints/my_checkpoint')

loss,acc = model.evaluate(x_test, y_test)
print("Restored model, accuracy: {:5.2f}%".format(100*acc))

Saving and restoring using keras checkpoint callback

# include the epoch in the file name. (uses `str.format`)
checkpoint_path = "training_2/cp-{epoch:04d}.ckpt"
checkpoint_dir = os.path.dirname(checkpoint_path)

cp_callback = tf.keras.callbacks.ModelCheckpoint(
    checkpoint_path, verbose=1, save_weights_only=True,
    # Save weights, every 5-epochs.
    period=5)

model = create_model()
model.save_weights(checkpoint_path.format(epoch=0))
model.fit(train_images, train_labels,
          epochs = 50, callbacks = [cp_callback],
          validation_data = (test_images,test_labels),
          verbose=0)

latest = tf.train.latest_checkpoint(checkpoint_dir)

new_model = create_model()
new_model.load_weights(latest)
loss, acc = new_model.evaluate(test_images, test_labels)
print("Restored model, accuracy: {:5.2f}%".format(100*acc))

saving model with custom metrics

import tensorflow as tf
from tensorflow import keras
mnist = tf.keras.datasets.mnist

(x_train, y_train),(x_test, y_test) = mnist.load_data()
x_train, x_test = x_train / 255.0, x_test / 255.0

# Custom Loss1 (for example) 
@tf.function() 
def customLoss1(yTrue,yPred):
  return tf.reduce_mean(yTrue-yPred) 

# Custom Loss2 (for example) 
@tf.function() 
def customLoss2(yTrue, yPred):
  return tf.reduce_mean(tf.square(tf.subtract(yTrue,yPred))) 

def create_model():
  model = tf.keras.models.Sequential([
    tf.keras.layers.Flatten(input_shape=(28, 28)),
    tf.keras.layers.Dense(512, activation=tf.nn.relu),  
    tf.keras.layers.Dropout(0.2),
    tf.keras.layers.Dense(10, activation=tf.nn.softmax)
    ])
  model.compile(optimizer='adam',
              loss='sparse_categorical_crossentropy',
              metrics=['accuracy', customLoss1, customLoss2])
  return model

# Create a basic model instance
model=create_model()

# Fit and evaluate model 
model.fit(x_train, y_train, epochs=1)
loss, acc,loss1, loss2 = model.evaluate(x_test, y_test,verbose=1)
print("Original model, accuracy: {:5.2f}%".format(100*acc))

model.save("./model.h5")

new_model=tf.keras.models.load_model("./model.h5",custom_objects={'customLoss1':customLoss1,'customLoss2':customLoss2})

Saving keras model with custom ops

When we have custom ops as in the following case (tf.tile), we need to create a function and wrap with a Lambda layer. Otherwise, model cannot be saved.

import numpy as np
import tensorflow as tf
from tensorflow.keras.layers import Input, Lambda
from tensorflow.keras import Model

def my_fun(a):
  out = tf.tile(a, (1, tf.shape(a)[0]))
  return out

a = Input(shape=(10,))
#out = tf.tile(a, (1, tf.shape(a)[0]))
out = Lambda(lambda x : my_fun(x))(a)
model = Model(a, out)

x = np.zeros((50,10), dtype=np.float32)
print(model(x).numpy())

model.save('my_model.h5')

#load the model
new_model=tf.keras.models.load_model("my_model.h5")

I think I have covered a few of the many ways of saving tf.keras model. However, there are many other ways. Please comment below if you see your use case is not covered above. Thanks!