# Need help understanding a few things (Large Data Sets)

**URL:** <https://discuss.roboflow.com/t/need-help-understanding-a-few-things-large-data-sets/3069>\
**Category:** 🤝  Community Help\
**Tags:** segmentation\
**Created:** [August 29, 2023, 3:40am UTC](https://discuss.roboflow.com/t/need-help-understanding-a-few-things-large-data-sets/3069 "2023-08-29T03:40:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 9\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Alejandro\_Bermudez](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discuss.roboflow.com/alejandro_bermudez/32/2734_2.png) [@Alejandro\_Bermudez](https://discuss.roboflow.com/u/Alejandro_Bermudez)\
**Post date:** [August 29, 2023, 3:40am UTC](https://discuss.roboflow.com/t/need-help-understanding-a-few-things-large-data-sets/3069/1 "2023-08-29T03:40:15Z")

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- **Project Type:** Roof Object Detection 1 Pass
- **Operating System & Browser:** MacOS & Chrome
- **Project Universe Link or Workspace/Project ID:** [EcoRoof Object Detection Dataset and Pre-Trained Model by Alejandro Bermudez](https://universe.roboflow.com/alejandro-bermudez-dvzxt/ecoroof)

So my issue is that I need to train a model on a large dataset of satellite images of roofs, similar to this: [Building Image Dataset and Pre-Trained Model by Ayush Wattal Ritu Bhamrah Ritanjali Jena Sai Kumar Sannidhi](https://universe.roboflow.com/ayush-wattal-ritu-bhamrah-ritanjali-jena-sai-kumar-sannidhi/building-image/browse?queryText=&pageSize=50&startingIndex=0&browseQuery=true)  
however, I want to incorporate automation in this, as I’ll need thousands of images as well as shadow detection to account for overlapping buildings.

So for now my only question for the community is that I need some tips and tricks for training large datasets, any tips on collecting large datasets? On my current plan, I only have 200 images to train a model on correct? I’ve seen other users use thousands of images and I’m sure that’s gonna have to be me. How do I do that?

Or if you have any other tips that could be helpful to a beginner all is welcomed!

Thank you!

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**Author:** ![leo](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discuss.roboflow.com/leo/32/2228_2.png) [@leo](https://discuss.roboflow.com/u/leo)\
**Post date:** [August 29, 2023, 10:19am UTC](https://discuss.roboflow.com/t/need-help-understanding-a-few-things-large-data-sets/3069/3 "2023-08-29T10:19:18Z")

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Hi @Alejandro_Bermudez

Sounds like an interesting project. Some things that I could suggest are:

- Use [Label Assist](https://docs.roboflow.com/annotate/use-roboflow-annotate/model-assisted-labeling). It can help you significantly speed up annotation time by using your model to train other images.
  - I recommend you label a smaller batch, train a model, then use it to label your other images.

- Sometimes, you don’t need that much data. As I mentioned earlier, try incrementally training your dataset to see if you see your desired performance.
  - Check out [this blog post](https://blog.roboflow.com/how-to-reduce-dataset-size-computer-vision) from our team on how you can reduce your dataset size.

- Invite your friends. The public plan allows you to invite up to three users so they can help you label data faster.

If you’d like details/tips on specific aspects or have any questions , feel free to follow up or create a new topic.

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**Author:** ![Alejandro\_Bermudez](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discuss.roboflow.com/alejandro_bermudez/32/2734_2.png) [@Alejandro\_Bermudez](https://discuss.roboflow.com/u/Alejandro_Bermudez)\
**Post date:** [August 30, 2023, 5:50pm UTC](https://discuss.roboflow.com/t/need-help-understanding-a-few-things-large-data-sets/3069/4 "2023-08-30T17:50:39Z")

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Thank you for the advice! I think my problem is going to need instance segmentation because I can’t use border boxes, I would need the exact dimensions of any given roof.

I read all the documentation you sent me, which is really cool especially that I can use a model that’s already better trained and can be found in Roboflow Universe, but what if the model I need has to already be very good and isn’t on Roboflow Universe, for example, I think I will need instance segmentation because bounding boxes are not accurate for detecting area (more on that later) and to will need likely over 2500 pictures for a solid mAP, precision, and recall. And I’ve built small Roboflow models of like 30 pictures and they perform as expected (very poorly) Any tips for this?

Determining area via Roboflow model isn’t possible however, if we use a standardized distance measurement from Google Maps we can convert pixel count to feet and from there determine a rough estimate of sq/f

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**Author:** ![leo](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discuss.roboflow.com/leo/32/2228_2.png) [@leo](https://discuss.roboflow.com/u/leo)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2023, 3:10pm UTC](https://discuss.roboflow.com/t/need-help-understanding-a-few-things-large-data-sets/3069/5 "2023-09-05T15:10:53Z")

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Hi @Alejandro_Bermudez

> [@Alejandro\_Bermudez](#):
>
> what if the model I need has to already be very good and isn’t on Roboflow Universe

Do you mean you have an external model you’ve found that you’d like to use?

I think it might be good to look into solutions like [Autodistill](https://github.com/autodistill/autodistill) from our team which uses large foundational models from SAM, CLIP, and Grounding DINO to label and train models.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Alejandro\_Bermudez](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discuss.roboflow.com/alejandro_bermudez/32/2734_2.png) [@Alejandro\_Bermudez](https://discuss.roboflow.com/u/Alejandro_Bermudez)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2023, 4:19am UTC](https://discuss.roboflow.com/t/need-help-understanding-a-few-things-large-data-sets/3069/6 "2023-09-22T04:19:53Z")

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Currently I have found no modes that support my exact needs, most available Roof models are object detection and my needs are instance segmentation.

So I’ll likely be making it myself. Instance segmentation, label assist and SAM, any other tips you’d suggest? I’m going to need to create my own dataset if google doesn’t have one that mixes well formatting-wise with Roboflow. I have a few ways that I can think of to generate mass samples of google maps static images however it might put a halt on my api key for unusual amounts of use. However I’m sure there’s better ways of creating datasets?

Thanks!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![leo](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discuss.roboflow.com/leo/32/2228_2.png) [@leo](https://discuss.roboflow.com/u/leo)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 8:26pm UTC](https://discuss.roboflow.com/t/need-help-understanding-a-few-things-large-data-sets/3069/7 "2023-09-29T20:26:29Z")

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Hi @Alejandro_Bermudez

We’re looking to improve on our Universe search, but if you [search `instance segmentation roof`](https://universe.roboflow.com/search?q=instance%20segmentation%20roof&t=metadata) by metadata on Universe, there are a couple datasets that might be good for your use case.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Alejandro\_Bermudez](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discuss.roboflow.com/alejandro_bermudez/32/2734_2.png) [@Alejandro\_Bermudez](https://discuss.roboflow.com/u/Alejandro_Bermudez)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2023, 9:00pm UTC](https://discuss.roboflow.com/t/need-help-understanding-a-few-things-large-data-sets/3069/8 "2023-09-29T21:00:43Z")

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That is true, these two might be very useful:

> **[Roof Detectron Instance Segmentation Dataset and Pre-Trained Model by Pavlo](https://universe.roboflow.com/pavlo/roof-detectron)**
>
> 50 open source Roof images plus a pre-trained Roof Detectron model and API. Created by Pavlo

> **[roof\_panel\_ins Instance Segmentation Dataset by computervision](https://universe.roboflow.com/computervision-r9mxj/roof_panel_ins/browse?queryText=&pageSize=50&startingIndex=0&browseQuery=true)**
>
> 1806 open source roof-panel images. roof\_panel\_ins dataset by computervision

Especially the second one, they may not be tailored but the second one has a large dataset of properly annotated images. I wont need 1 of the two classes, but the roof class would be useful. Is there a way you know of that I can run the model on images but only looking for a single class? rather than simply gathering the data from a single class in the returned predictions?

I appreciate the help thus far!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![leo](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/discuss.roboflow.com/leo/32/2228_2.png) [@leo](https://discuss.roboflow.com/u/leo)\
**Post date:** [September 30, 2023, 11:17pm UTC](https://discuss.roboflow.com/t/need-help-understanding-a-few-things-large-data-sets/3069/9 "2023-09-30T23:17:50Z")

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Hi @Alejandro_Bermudez

Yes, there is a way to do that. You can filter the classes returned from predictions depending on how you use your model. On the hosted inference API, you can set a `classes` query config, where you can input a comma-separated list of classes you only want it to return. [Learn more on the hosted inference docs](https://docs.roboflow.com/deploy/hosted-api/object-detection#inference-api-parameters).

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/uploads/roboflow1/original/1X/bb6edbfa56d0cf2ee603f061e9e09103502cc8cc.png) [@system](https://discuss.roboflow.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2023, 11:18pm UTC](https://discuss.roboflow.com/t/need-help-understanding-a-few-things-large-data-sets/3069/10 "2023-10-10T23:18:43Z")

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