Using ANNdotNET – GUI tool to create CNTK based model for Iris data set


In this tutorial we are going to create and train Iris model using ANNdotNET.  ANNdotNET is windows application for creating and training CNTK based models without leaving GUI.

All procedures from downloading the data set, to exporting model, can be achieved in 6 steps.

1. Step: Download the data set file from

2. Step: Open ANNdotNET application. Press New command, select Project 1 tree item and rename the project  into Iris Data Set.

2. Step: Select Data Command from Model Preparation ribbon group, Click File button from Import experimenal data dialog and select the recently downloaded file. Check Comma check box and press Import Data button.

3. Steps: Double click on Scaling for each column, and select MinMax normalization option from the popup ComboBox list. Double click on Type for the output column, and select Category, and 1:N for encoding. More information how to prepare data for ML you can find at /2018/03/01/data-preparation-tool-for-machine-learning/

4. Steps: Once the data is prepared Click Create Model Command and Model Settings panel is shown. Setup parameters as shown on the image below and click Run command.

5. Steps: Once the model is trained you can evaluate model by selecting Evaluate Command. Depending on the model type (regression, Binary or Multi class classification) The appropriate Evaluation dialog appears. Since this is multi class classification model, the Confusion matrix is shows, with micro and macron performance parameters.

6. Steps: For further analysis you can export model to Excel, or into ONNX. Also you can save the project which can later be opened and retrained again.

Note: Currently ANNdotNET is in alpha version, and more feature will come in near future.

5 thoughts on “Using ANNdotNET – GUI tool to create CNTK based model for Iris data set

  1. Hello, and thanks for this blog
    i just clone the project from github this morning.
    build it and run the app in debug (x64 – WIN7 , i guess CPU only).
    everything fine ’till i tried to start training the model
    i got this exception
    System.ApplicationException : ‘Input file ‘C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Temp\76663462-60c3-4de2-8902-361d63d87c6acntk_test’ is not open.
    from Factory.cs progressReport
    hoping that’s a small issue …

    • HI,

      thanks for comment. During Model creation, ANNdotNET creates two files in temp directory which are in cntk format. Based on those files the model setup number of input and output dimensions, as well as prepare training and testing data sets.
      For some reason the app cannot access those files.
      Please make sure that the temp folder is accessible by your account and or please repeat the procedure from the begging.

      Hope this will fix the issue.

      Bahrudin

      • checked,
        the exception mentioned a file ending by _test and i have in the location a file with the same name but ending by _train, so for me the account is able to create files here the one it’s looking for is missing

  2. ok, found! if i do not define the test data selection then no file is created and it fails ^^
    thanks again for your tool/blog

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