NVIDIA/DALI v1.6.0 on GitHub

Key Features and Enhancements

This DALI release includes the following key features and enhancements.

Added support for lambdas and local functions as callback in parallel external_source operator (#3270, #3269).
Added the following tutorials:
- TensorFlow DALI Dataset input handling (#3212).
- Parallel external_source operator (#3199).
Added DALI preprocessing to the EfficientDet example (#3118).

Fixed issues

This DALI release includes the following fixes:

Fixed a crash that happened in the gaussian_blur operator for inputs where one of the dimensions equals 1 (#3291).
Fixed random Python crashes on the process teardown when the external_source operator was used (#3245).
Fixed readers.video hanging on some HEVC samples (#3247).

Improvements

Add error message checking in python tests (#3324)
Optimize bundling wheel by using multiprocessing in build_helper.sh (#3323)
Changed "accross" to "across" in README.rst (#3329)
Move to CUDA 11.4 update 2 (#3322)
Fix FFmpeg vulnerabilities (CVE-2020-22037, CVE-2021-38171, CVE-2021-38291) (#3315)
Rework diplacement filter to sample-based approach (#3311)
Remove kernels/alloc.h (#3309)
Adjust usage of rasies and assert_raises in tests (#3318)
Move static UserStream variable to the Get function inside the class (#3242)
Adjust usage of raise and assert_raises (#3316)
Update README with third parties dependencies (#3320)
Add input type validation to feed_ndarray in MXNet and PyTorch (#3308)
Add parameters checks when deserializing a pipeline (#3253)
Extend BlockSetup with 1-dim specialization (#3304)
Move back to upstream libtar from conda (#3301)
Rework LUT to batch processing and remove access to TL buffer (#3298)
Add checking a message of the expected exception against a pattern in nose tests (#3302)
Use libcu++ interfaces. (#3297)
Update third party dependencies (#3300)
Pin nvJPEG2000 and GPU Direct dependencies (#3299)
Bump up nvidia tensorflow version to 21.08 in tests (#3296)
Implement InputDatasets for DALIDataset (#3292)
Remove access to underlying contiguous TL buffer in bb_flip op (#3283)
Make memory kind a tag type instead of an enum value. (#3290)
Add examples on serialization to parallel external source notebook (#3270)
Support lambdas and local functions as callbacks in parallel ExternalSource (#3269)
TarArchive::TellArchie implementation + renaming (#3286)
Remove access to underlying contiguous TL buffer in Flip op (#3280)
Remove access to underlying contiguous TL buffer in Normalize op (#3281)
Use default resources for allocating tensors (#2948)
Remove access to underlying contiguous TL buffer in Constant op (#3276)
TarArchive additional features (#3273)
Add ScatterGatherCPU and rework Copy op to batch processing (#3266)
Change the way how start and end timestamps are converted to frames (#3252)
Update RMM to an up-to-date & version with interface rework applied. (#3254)
Test fused decoder out-of-bounds error (#3175)
Bump supported tested TensorFlow versions (#3250)
Update supported CUDA version in docker/build.sh (#3248)
Adjust capitalization in tutorials (#3246)
Remove not applicable aclaratory note from PyTorch and Paddle iterators (#3235)
Add tutorial about TF DALI Dataset input handling (#3212)
Add tutorials for Parallel External Source (#3199)
Add DALI to EfficientDet example (#3118)
Use fn.random module in tests and examples (#3174)

Bug Fixes

Improve tests for expected errors + fix PythonFunction (#3332)
Fix incorrect use of a global variable in the test of operator Shapes. (#3310)
Rework Cast to batch processing (#3278)
Fix HEVC video handling (#3247)
Fix infinite loop for convolution with extent equal 1 (#3291)
Add yaml as a Webdataset test dependency, adjust to new WDS API (#3295)
Fix missing condition variable include (#3289)
Remove the inclusion of scatter_gather.h from types.h (#3288)
Fix cast warning in ScatterGather (#3284)
Clear to_dealloc and notify under a lock. (#3282)
Fix notification method in deferred deallocation. (#3279)
Fix race condition when initializing plain host memory resource. (#3268)
Fix alignment constraints in CUDA VM resource. (#3274)
Fix missing sizeof in Tensor Test (#3267)
Fix hw decoder tests disabled on old drivers (#3257)
Don't increase alignment to upstream alignment when retrying to allocate (#3264)
Avoid creating primary context for synchronization. (#3263)
Avoid upstream allocation stampede by retrying to allocate from free after gaining the upstream lock. (#3258)
Remove excessive synchronization in AsyncPool. (#3256)
Ensure keeping py_pool alive until pipline is garbage collected (#3245)
Fix running Python core tests (#3249)
Fix an assigment of py::none() to py::dict in backend_impl.cc (#3244)
Fix interoperation between DALI and PyTorch lightning due to buffering (#3239)
Reduce number of iterations in L0 tests (#3173)
Fix memory leak in backend_impl.cc caused by PyObject_GetAttr (#3233)
Fix FFmpeg CVE-2021-38114 (#3231)

Breaking API changes

There are no breaking changes in this DALI release.

Deprecated features

There are no deprecated features in this DALI release.

Known issues:

The video loader operator requires that the key frames occur at a minimum every 10 to 15 frames of the video stream. If the key frames occur at a lesser frequency, then the returned frames may be out of sync.
The DALI TensorFlow plugin might not be compatible with TensorFlow versions 1.15.0 and later.
To use DALI with the TensorFlow version that does not have a prebuilt plugin binary shipped with DALI, make sure that the compiler that is used to build TensorFlow exists on the system during the plugin installation. (Depending on the particular version, use GCC 4.8.4, GCC 4.8.5, or GCC 5.4.)
Due to some known issues with meltdown/spectra mitigations and DALI, DALI shows best performance when run in Docker with escalated privileges, for example:
- privileged=yes in Extra Settings for AWS data points
- --privileged or --security-opt seccomp=unconfined for bare Docker

Binary builds

Install via pip for CUDA 10.2:
pip install --extra-index-url https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/redist/ nvidia-dali-cuda102==1.6.0
pip install --extra-index-url https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/redist/ nvidia-dali-tf-plugin-cuda102==1.6.0

or for CUDA 11:

CUDA 11.0 build uses CUDA toolkit enhanced compatibility. It is built with the latest CUDA 11.x toolkit
while it can run on the latest, stable CUDA 11.0 capable drivers (450.80 or later). 
Using the latest driver may enable additional functionality. 
More details can be found in enhanced CUDA compatibility guide.

pip install --extra-index-url https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/redist/ nvidia-dali-cuda110==1.6.0
pip install --extra-index-url https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/redist/ nvidia-dali-tf-plugin-cuda110==1.6.0

Or use direct download links (CUDA 10.2):

Or use direct download links (CUDA 11.0):

FFmpeg source code:

This software uses code of FFmpeg licensed under the LGPLv2.1 and its source can be downloaded here

Libsndfile source code:

https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/redist/nvidia-dali/libsndfile-1.0.31.tar.gz

NVIDIA/DALI v1.6.0 DALI v1.6.0 on GitHub