M-PACT: An Open Source Platform for Repeatable Activity Classification Research
This platform addresses replication issues for researchers in activity classification, though it is incremental as it builds on existing models and tools.
The paper tackles the problem of replication hurdles in activity classification research by introducing M-PACT, an open-source platform that integrates four state-of-the-art models (I3D, C3D, ResNet50+LSTM, TSN) under a single framework, enabling reproducible competitive results and faster prototyping.
There are many hurdles that prevent the replication of existing work which hinders the development of new activity classification models. These hurdles include switching between multiple deep learning libraries and the development of boilerplate experimental pipelines. We present M-PACT to overcome existing issues by removing the need to develop boilerplate code which allows users to quickly prototype action classification models while leveraging existing state-of-the-art (SOTA) models available in the platform. M-PACT is the first to offer four SOTA activity classification models, I3D, C3D, ResNet50+LSTM, and TSN, under a single platform with reproducible competitive results. This platform allows for the generation of models and results over activity recognition datasets through the use of modular code, various preprocessing and neural network layers, and seamless data flow. In this paper, we present the system architecture, detail the functions of various modules, and describe the basic tools to develop a new model in M-PACT.