How to do multi class classification using Support

Question

In every book and example always they show only binary classification (two classes) and new vector can belong to any one class.

Here the problem is I have 4 classes(c1, c2, c3, c4). I've training data for 4 classes.

For new vector the output should be like

C1 80% (the winner)

c2 10%

c3 6%

c4 4%

How to do this? I'm planning to use libsvm (because it most popular). I don't know much about it. If any of you guys used it previously please tell me specific commands I'm supposed to use.

Answer 1

You can always reduce a multi-class classification problem to a binary problem by choosing random partititions of the set of classes, recursively. This is not necessarily any less effective or efficient than learning all at once, since the sub-learning problems require less examples since the partitioning problem is smaller. (It may require at most a constant order time more, e.g. twice as long). It may also lead to more accurate learning.

I'm not necessarily recommending this, but it is one answer to your question, and is a general technique that can be applied to any binary learning algorithm.

Answer 2

data=load('E:\dataset\scene_categories\all_dataset.mat');
    meas = data.all_dataset;
    species = data.dataset_label;
    [g gn] = grp2idx(species);                      %# nominal class to numeric

%# split training/testing sets
[trainIdx testIdx] = crossvalind('HoldOut', species, 1/10);
%# 1-vs-1 pairwise models
num_labels = length(gn);
clear gn;
num_classifiers = num_labels*(num_labels-1)/2;
pairwise = zeros(num_classifiers ,2);
row_end = 0;
for i=1:num_labels - 1
    row_start = row_end + 1;
    row_end = row_start + num_labels - i -1;
    pairwise(row_start : row_end, 1) = i;
    count = 0;
    for j = i+1 : num_labels        
        pairwise( row_start + count , 2) = j;
        count = count + 1;
    end    
end
clear row_start row_end count i j num_labels num_classifiers;
svmModel = cell(size(pairwise,1),1);            %# store binary-classifers
predTest = zeros(sum(testIdx),numel(svmModel)); %# store binary predictions

%# classify using one-against-one approach, SVM with 3rd degree poly kernel
for k=1:numel(svmModel)
    %# get only training instances belonging to this pair
    idx = trainIdx & any( bsxfun(@eq, g, pairwise(k,:)) , 2 );

    %# train
    svmModel{k} = svmtrain(meas(idx,:), g(idx), ...
                 'Autoscale',true, 'Showplot',false, 'Method','QP', ...
                 'BoxConstraint',2e-1, 'Kernel_Function','rbf', 'RBF_Sigma',1);

    %# test
    predTest(:,k) = svmclassify(svmModel{k}, meas(testIdx,:));
end
pred = mode(predTest,2);   %# voting: clasify as the class receiving most votes

%# performance
cmat = confusionmat(g(testIdx),pred);
acc = 100*sum(diag(cmat))./sum(cmat(:));
fprintf('SVM (1-against-1):\naccuracy = %.2f%%\n', acc);
fprintf('Confusion Matrix:\n'), disp(cmat)

Answer 3

It does not have a specific switch (command) for multi-class prediction. it automatically handles multi-class prediction if your training dataset contains more than two classes.

Answer 4

Nothing special compared with binary prediction. see the following example for 3-class prediction based on SVM.

install.packages("e1071")
library("e1071")
data(iris)
attach(iris)
## classification mode
# default with factor response:
model <- svm(Species ~ ., data = iris)
# alternatively the traditional interface:
x <- subset(iris, select = -Species)
y <- Species
model <- svm(x, y) 
print(model)
summary(model)
# test with train data
pred <- predict(model, x)
# (same as:)
pred <- fitted(model)
# Check accuracy:
table(pred, y)
# compute decision values and probabilities:
pred <- predict(model, x, decision.values = TRUE)
attr(pred, "decision.values")[1:4,]
# visualize (classes by color, SV by crosses):
plot(cmdscale(dist(iris[,-5])),
     col = as.integer(iris[,5]),
     pch = c("o","+")[1:150 %in% model$index + 1])

Answer 5

Use the SVM Multiclass library. Find it at the SVM page by Thorsten Joachims

Answer 6

LibSVM uses the one-against-one approach for multi-class learning problems. From the FAQ:

Q: What method does libsvm use for multi-class SVM ? Why don't you use the "1-against-the rest" method ?

It is one-against-one. We chose it after doing the following comparison: C.-W. Hsu and C.-J. Lin. A comparison of methods for multi-class support vector machines, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, 13(2002), 415-425.

"1-against-the rest" is a good method whose performance is comparable to "1-against-1." We do the latter simply because its training time is shorter.