Introduction to Synthetic Data for Machine Learning
Chapter 1: Understanding Synthetic Data
What is Synthetic Data?
Why Generate Artificial Data?
Real Data vs. Synthetic Data
Common Terminology
Potential Benefits
General Limitations
Quiz for Chapter 1
Chapter 2: Basic Methods for Data Generation
The Idea of Data Generation Models
Generating Data from Statistical Distributions
Introduction to Rule-Based Systems
Generating Simple Numerical Data
Generating Simple Categorical Data
Hands-on Practical: Create Basic Synthetic Data
Quiz for Chapter 2
Chapter 3: Generating Synthetic Tabular Data
Understanding Tabular Data Structure
Row Sampling Techniques
Independent Column Value Generation
Preserving Basic Column Correlations
Introduction to Data Anonymization Concepts
Hands-on Practical: Generate a Synthetic Table
Quiz for Chapter 3
Chapter 4: Introduction to Synthetic Image Data
Why Synthetic Data for Images?
Basic Image Properties: Pixels and Color
Creating Images with Simple Shapes and Patterns
Applying Noise and Simple Augmentations
Introduction to Rendering Simple Scenes
Challenges in Realistic Image Generation
Hands-on Practical: Generate Simple Synthetic Images
Quiz for Chapter 4
Chapter 5: Evaluating Synthetic Data Quality
Importance of Evaluation
Visual Inspection Methods
Basic Statistical Comparisons
Comparing Data Distributions
Concept of Fidelity vs. Utility
Quiz for Chapter 5
Chapter 6: Tools and Libraries Overview
Role of Software in Data Generation
Libraries for Basic Data Manipulation (NumPy, Pandas)
Introduction to Faker Library
Libraries for Simple Image Manipulation (Pillow, Scikit-image)
Finding Generation Tools
Quiz for Chapter 6
Concept of Fidelity vs. Utility
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- Synthetic Data Generation Methods: A Review, Jinsung Yoon, James Jordon, and Mihaela van der Schaar, 2020 ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), Vol. 53 (Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)) DOI: 10.1145/3409483 - A comprehensive survey reviewing various synthetic data generation methods and their evaluation approaches, covering both fidelity and utility aspects.
- Foundations of Synthetic Data, Georgina Cosma, 2023 (CRC Press) DOI: 10.1201/9781003239859 - A recent book providing a systematic overview of synthetic data, including methods for generation, evaluation, and practical considerations for data quality.