SOM Color Sorter

Description

The SOM Color Sorter is an example of Kohohen's Self-Organising Map. The SOM will alter its weights in order to group together similar inputs. Once the weights are organised, then new input data can be classified using labels from the previous trainings inputs. SOMs can be used for identifying and sorting images into categories of like images. Likewise the SOM is able to identify images which are related to a given input image (Similar to the image search from Google).

Constructing the GUI for the SOM was somewhat of an annoying process due to using javaFX. As I am still quite new to using javaFX, some of the ins and outs of the application has changed since swing. One of the pitfalls I fell into was trying to use a standard thread in order to change something on the application. This meant that there was some glitching of the components. Likewise, I also found that using a writable image inside an ImageView can produce similar glitching and flickering. However, I managed to find a solution to the flickering by using a canvas which writes pixel values to an image the draws the image when the canvas is updated. Drawing pixel straight onto the canvas is a bit too slow for reasons unknown.

This project was created as a way of revising for a Computational Intelligence module. After being taught about SOM's I thought that the best way to learn about them, would be to create one. The outcome was very satisfying to see and this project was very enjoyable to make. Maybe some point in the future this could come in handy if I ever decide to make an image searching SOM for my computer.

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