The MNIST handwritten digit classification problem is a standard dataset used in computer vision and deep learning.
Although the dataset is effectively solved, it can be used as the basis for learning and practicing how to develop, evaluate, and use convolutional deep learning neural networks for image classification from scratch. This includes how to develop a robust test harness for estimating the performance of the model, how to explore improvements to the model, and how to save the model and later load it to make predictions on new data.
MNIST Handwritten Digit Classification Dataset.
The MNIST dataset is an acronym that stands for the Modified National Institute of Standards and Technology dataset. It is a dataset of 60,000 small square 28×28 pixel grayscale images of handwritten single digits between 0 and 9.
The task is to classify a given image of a handwritten digit into one of 10 classes representing integer values from 0 to 9, inclusively.
It is a widely used and deeply understood dataset and, for the most part, is “solved.” Top-performing models are deep learning convolutional neural networks that achieve a classification accuracy of above 99%, with an error rate between 0.4 %and 0.2% on the hold out test dataset.
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