animation (version 2.0-5)

grad.desc: Gradient Descent Algorithm for the 2D case

Description

This function provids a visual illustration for the process of minimizing a real-valued function through Gradient Descent Algorithm.

Usage

grad.desc(FUN = function(x, y) x^2 + 2 * y^2, rg = c(-3, 
    -3, 3, 3), init = c(-3, 3), gamma = 0.05, tol = 0.001, gr, 
    len = 50, interact = FALSE, col.contour = "red", col.arrow = "blue", 
    main)

Arguments

FUN

a bivariate objective function to be minimized (variable names do not have to be x and y); if the gradient argument gr is NULL, deriv will be used to c

rg

ranges for independent variables to plot contours; in a c(x0, y0, x1, y1) form

init

starting values

gamma

size of a step

tol

tolerance to stop the iterations, i.e. the minimum difference between $F(x_i)$ and $F(x_{i+1})$

gr

the gradient of FUN; it should be a bivariate function to calculate the gradient (not the negative gradient!) of FUN at a point $(x,y)$, e.g. function(x, y) 2 * x + 4 * y. If it is NULL, R will use

len

desired length of the independent sequences (to compute z values for contours)

interact

logical; whether choose the starting values by cliking on the contour plot directly?

col.contour,col.arrow

colors for the contour lines and arrows respectively (default to be red and blue)

main

the title of the plot; if missing, it will be derived from FUN

Value

• A list containing
• par
  the solution for the local minimum
• value
  the value of the objective function corresponding to par
• iter
  the number of iterations; if it is equal to ani.options('nmax'), it's quite likely that the solution is not reliable because the maximum number of iterations has been reached
• gradient
  the gradient function of the objective function
• persp
  a function to make the perspective plot of the objective function; can accept further arguments from persp (see the examples below)

Details

Gradient descent is an optimization algorithm. To find a local minimum of a function using gradient descent, one takes steps proportional to the negative of the gradient (or the approximate gradient) of the function at the current point. If instead one takes steps proportional to the gradient, one approaches a local maximum of that function; the procedure is then known as gradient ascent.

The arrows are indicating the result of iterations and the process of minimization; they will go to a local minimum in the end if the maximum number of iterations ani.options('nmax') has not been reached.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradient_descent

http://animation.yihui.name/compstat:gradient_descent_algorithm

See Also

deriv, persp, contour, optim

Examples

## default example
oopt = ani.options(interval = 0.3, nmax = ifelse(interactive(), 
    50, 2))
xx = grad.desc()
xx$par  # solution
xx$persp(col = "lightblue", phi = 30)  # perspective plot

## define more complex functions; a little time-consuming
f1 = function(x, y) x^2 + 3 * sin(y)
xx = grad.desc(f1, pi * c(-2, -2, 2, 2), c(-2 * pi, 
    2))
xx$persp(col = "lightblue", theta = 30, phi = 30)

## need to provide the gradient when deriv() cannot handle
#   the function
grad.desc(FUN = function(x1, x2) {
    x0 = cos(x2)
    x1^2 + x0
}, gr = function(x1, x2) {
    c(2 * x1, -sin(x2))
}, rg = c(-3, -1, 3, 5), init = c(-3, 0.5), main = expression(x[1]^2 + 
    cos(x[2])))

## or a even more complicated function
ani.options(interval = 0, nmax = ifelse(interactive(), 
    200, 2))
f2 = function(x, y) sin(1/2 * x^2 - 1/4 * y^2 + 3) * 
    cos(2 * x + 1 - exp(y))
xx = grad.desc(f2, c(-2, -2, 2, 2), c(-1, 0.5), gamma = 0.1, 
    tol = 1e-04)

## click your mouse to select a start point
if (interactive()) {
    xx = grad.desc(f2, c(-2, -2, 2, 2), interact = TRUE, tol = 1e-04)
    xx$persp(col = "lightblue", theta = 30, phi = 30)
}

## HTML animation pages
saveHTML({
    ani.options(interval = 0.3)
    grad.desc()
}, img.name = "grad.desc", htmlfile = "grad.desc.html", ani.height = 500, 
    ani.width = 500, title = "Demonstration of the Gradient Descent Algorithm", 
    description = "The arrows will take you to the optimum step by step.")

ani.options(oopt)