MNIST dataset

MNIST is a dataset of 60,000 28 x 28 pixel grayscale images of 10 digits. It also contains a test set of 10,000 images. The dataset consists of the following four files:

• train-images-idx3-ubyte.gz: Training set images (9912422 bytes), go to http://yann.lecun.com/exdb/mnist/train-images-idx3-ubyte.gz
• train-labels-idx1-ubyte.gz: Training set labels (28881 bytes), go to http://yann.lecun.com/exdb/mnist/train-labels-idx1-ubyte.gz
• t10k-images-idx3-ubyte.gz: Test set images (1648877 bytes), go to http://yann.lecun.com/exdb/mnist/t10k-images-idx3-ubyte.gz
• t10k-labels-idx1-ubyte.gz: Test set labels (4542 bytes), go to http://yann.lecun.com/exdb/mnist/t10k-labels-idx1-ubyte.gz

Data in these files is stored in the IDX format. The IDX file format is a format for vectors and multidimensional matrices of various numerical types. You can find more info on the IDX format at http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/manual/IDX_file_format.html:

The preceding image shows the MNIST dataset representation images.