DeepForest Changelog#

Version 2.0.0 (Date: November 4, 2025)#

Breaking Changes - Deprecated Items Removed:#

Removed Functions:

  • xml_to_annotations() - Use utilities.read_pascal_voc(path) or the general utilities.read_file(path).

  • boxes_to_shapefile() - Use image_to_geo_coordinates().

  • project_boxes() - Use image_to_geo_coordinates().

  • annotations_to_shapefile - Use image_to_geo_coordinates().

  • plot_points() - Use plot_results

  • draw_points() - Use plot_results

  • plot_predictions() - Use plot_results

  • draw_predictions() - Use plot_results

  • use_release() - Use load_model('weecology/deepforest-tree') instead

  • use_bird_release() - Use load_model('weecology/deepforest-bird') instead

Removed Parameters:

  • geometry_type and save_dir from shapefile_to_annotations()

  • num_classes and label_dict from deepforest() constructor - Use config file instead

  • augment parameter from all functions - Use augmentations parameter instead

  • raster_path parameter from predict_tile() - Use path parameter instead

Migration Guide:

  • Replace xml_to_annotations(xml_path) with read_pascal_voc(xml_path)

  • Replace boxes_to_shapefile(df, root_dir) with image_to_geo_coordinates(df, root_dir)

  • Replace plot_points(image, points) with plot_results(results)

  • Replace draw_points(image, points) with plot_results(results)

  • Replace plot_predictions(image, df) with plot_results(results)

  • Replace draw_predictions(image, df) with plot_results(results)

  • Replace use_release() with load_model('weecology/deepforest-tree')

  • Replace use_bird_release() with load_model('weecology/deepforest-bird')

  • Use config file or config_args instead of constructor parameters

  • Use augmentations parameter instead of augment parameter

Developer#

Developer Workflow:

  • Pre-commit workflow with Ruff, docformatter, and nbQA for automated code quality checks

  • Editor integration recommendations (VS Code, PyCharm, Vim/Neovim)

  • Comprehensive developer contributing guide

Infrastructure:

  • Modernized pyproject.toml configuration with improved dependency management

  • Better optional dependency handling (dev, docs)

Documentation:

  • Enhanced Sphinx documentation with pydata theme

  • Improved version switcher for release candidates

  • ReadTheDocs integration with uv

Testing:

  • Enhanced test coverage for edge cases

  • Added comprehensive test suites for dataset handling, evaluation metrics, CLI functionality, model inference, and HuggingFace model loading

Features#

Model Structure:

  • Enhanced configuration handling via config file system

  • Better separation of concerns between training and prediction modules

  • Consistent type hints in BaseModel and model creation methods

  • Improved model validation with check_model() method

Data Handling:

  • Improved annotation reading with unified read_file() method

  • Enhanced geometry type detection and conversion

  • Better coordinate system handling (image ↔ geographic)

Enhancements#

Installation & Packaging:

  • Updated Python version requirement to 3.11+

  • Removed conda support (package now only available via PyPI)

  • Canonical PEP 440 versioning format implementation (e.g., 2.0.0rc1)

Testing & Evaluation:

  • Improved evaluate_boxes() with better multi-class support

  • Enhanced class recall and precision calculations

  • Better handling of empty predictions and ground truth

  • Improved point recall evaluation for point annotations

Documentation:

  • Enhanced installation instructions (pip/uv focused)

  • Better examples and tutorials

  • Updated migration guides for deprecated features

Version 2.0.0rc2 (Date: October 23, 2025)#

Internal / Developer Updates:

  • Fixed publish pipeline issues

  • No user-facing changes from 2.0.0rc1

Version 2.0.0rc1 (Date: October 21, 2025)#

Release Candidate 1 - Beta Release#

Breaking Changes - Deprecated Items Removed:#

Removed Functions:

  • xml_to_annotations() - Use utilities.read_pascal_voc(path) or the general utilities.read_file(path).

  • boxes_to_shapefile() - Use image_to_geo_coordinates().

  • project_boxes() - Use image_to_geo_coordinates().

  • annotations_to_shapefile - Use image_to_geo_coordinates().

  • plot_points() - Use plot_results

  • draw_points() - Use plot_results

  • plot_predictions() - Use plot_results

  • draw_predictions() - Use plot_results

  • use_release() - Use load_model('weecology/deepforest-tree') instead

  • use_bird_release() - Use load_model('weecology/deepforest-bird') instead

Removed Parameters:

  • geometry_type and save_dir from shapefile_to_annotations()

  • num_classes and label_dict from deepforest() constructor - Use config file instead

  • augment parameter from all functions - Use augmentations parameter instead

  • raster_path parameter from predict_tile() - Use path parameter instead

Migration Guide:

  • Replace xml_to_annotations(xml_path) with read_pascal_voc(xml_path)

  • Replace boxes_to_shapefile(df, root_dir) with image_to_geo_coordinates(df, root_dir)

  • Replace plot_points(image, points) with plot_results(results)

  • Replace draw_points(image, points) with plot_results(results)

  • Replace plot_predictions(image, df) with plot_results(results)

  • Replace draw_predictions(image, df) with plot_results(results)

  • Replace use_release() with load_model('weecology/deepforest-tree')

  • Replace use_bird_release() with load_model('weecology/deepforest-bird')

  • Use config file or config_args instead of constructor parameters

  • Use augmentations parameter instead of augment parameter

Version 1.5.2 (Date: Feb 7, 2025)#

The major innovations are:

  1. Improve Tests on edge cases

Additional features and enhancements include:

  • Documentation: Improved documentation workflow and version available

Version 1.5.0 (Date: Jan 15, 2024)#

The major innovations are:

  1. Restructured package layout by moving code into src/ directory for better organization

  2. Added batch prediction capabilities for improved processing of multiple images

  3. Implemented support for image dataframes to allow more flexible input formats

  4. Created plot_annotations method for better visualization of predictions

  5. Added out-of-memory dataset sample for handling large datasets efficiently

Additional features and enhancements include:

  • Enhancement: Reorganized package structure to follow modern Python packaging standards

  • Enhancement: Enhanced test coverage for new features

  • Enhancement: Improved code organization and maintainability

  • Documentation: Added docformatter for consistent docstring formatting

  • Documentation: Improved documentation clarity and organization

  • Documentation: Added new contributor: Dingyi Fang

Version 1.4.1 (Date: Oct 26, 2024)#

  • Enhancement: Use GitHub Actions to publish the package.

Version 1.4.0 (Date: Oct 9, 2024)#

The major innovations are:

  1. New model loading framework using HuggingFace. DeepForest models are now available on HuggingFace. The models can be loaded using load_model() and used for inference.

  2. An all-purpose read_file method is introduced to read annotations from various formats including CSV, JSON, and Pascal VOC.

  3. The CropModel class is introduced to classify detected objects using a trained classification model. Use when a multi-class DeepForest model is not sufficiently flexible, such as when new data sources are used for fine-grained classification and class imbalance.

  4. deepforest.visualize.plot_results is now the primary method for visualizing predictions. The function is more flexible and allows for customizing the plot using the supervision package.

Additional features and enhancements include:

  • New Feature: A crop_raster function is introduced to crop a raster image using a bounding box.

  • New Feature: Added beta support for multiple annotation types including point, box, and polygon.

  • New Feature: Added support for learning rates scheduling using the torch.optim.lr_scheduler module. The learning rate scheduler can be specified in the configuration file.

  • New Utility: Created utilities.download_ArcGIS_REST function to download tiles from the ArcGIS REST API (e.g., NAIP imagery).

  • Enhancement: The training module better matches torchvision negative anchors format for empty frames.

  • Deprecation: shapefile_to_annotations in deepforest/utilities.py is deprecated in favor of the more general read_file method.

  • Deprecation: predict in deepforest/main.py. The return_plot argument is deprecated and will be removed in version 2.0. Use visualize.plot_results instead.

  • Deprecation: predict_tile in deepforest/main.py. Deprecated arguments return_plot, color, and thickness will be removed in version 2.0.

  • Deprecation: crop_function in deepforest/preprocess.py. The base_dir argument is deprecated and will be removed in version 2.0. Use save_dir instead.

  • Deprecation: The deepforest.visualize.IoU_Callback for better alignment with the PyTorch Lightning API (see issue).

  • Deprecation: deepforest.main.use_release and deepforest.main.use_bird_release are deprecated in favor of the new model loading framework, for example using deepforest.main.load_model("weecology/deepforest-bird").

Version 1.3.3 (Date: Mar 12, 2024)#

  • Enhancement: split_raster now allows annotations_file to be None, enabling flexibility during data preprocessing.

Version 1.3.0 (Date: Dec 3, 2023)#

  • Deprecation: Removed IoU_Callback for better alignment with the PyTorch Lightning API (see issue).

  • Refactor: Evaluation code now leverages the PyTorch Lightning evaluation loop for result calculation during training.

  • Refactor: Simplified image_callbacks by using predictions directly. No need to specify the root directory or CSV file, as the evaluation file is assumed.

Version 1.1.3 (Date: Nov 9, 2021)#

  • Enhancement: Added box coordinates to the evaluation results frame for better result tracking.

Version 1.1.2 (Date: Sep 30, 2021)#

  • Bug Fix: Fixed incorrect precision calculation in class_recall.csv when multiple classes were present.

Version 1.1.1 (Date: Sep 14, 2021)#

  • Update: project_boxes now includes output options for both predict_tile and predict_image.

  • New Feature: Introduced annotations_to_shapefile, which reverses shapefile_to_annotations functionality. Thanks to @sdtaylor for this contribution.

Version 1.1.0 (Date: Aug 5, 2021)#

  1. Enhancement: Empty frames are now allowed by passing annotations with 0’s for all coordinates. Example format:

    image_path, 0, 0, 0, 0, "Tree"

  2. New Feature: Introduced check_release to reduce GitHub rate limit issues. When using use_release(), the local model will be used if check_release = False.

Version 1.0.9 (Date: Jul 14, 2021)#

  • Enhancement: Improved default dtype for Windows users, thanks to @ElliotSalisbury for the contribution.

Version 1.0.0 (Date: Jun 7, 2021)#

  • Major Update: Transitioned from TensorFlow to a PyTorch backend, enhancing performance and flexibility.

Version 0.1.34 (Date: )#

  • Optimization: Profiled dataset and evaluation code, significantly improving evaluation performance.

Version 0.1.30 (Date: )#

  • Bug Fix: Resolved issues to allow learning rate monitoring and decay based on val_classification_loss.

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