training images? Considerations for selection

[idata]

Hello,

I'm relatively new and am still learning the basics. I've used NVIDIA DIGITS in the past, and am now looking at Tensorflow. While I've been able to fumble my way around creating some models for a few projects I'm working on, I really want to start diving deeper into what I'm doing, how I'm doing it, and ultimately a better understanding of why. The Movidius NCS has been challenging, so I feel like I need to step back from just fumbling and getting a better understanding of the basics.

One area that I would like to start with is the Images that I'm using for training and testing. Can anyone point me to a blog, an article, a paper, or give me some insight in what I need to consider when selecting images to train a new model on. Up until recently, I've been using datasets that have already been selected and that are available for download. Lets say I'm going to start working on a project that involves object detection of ships from a variety of distances and angles.

So my thoughts would be

1) I need a large quantity of images.

2) The images need to contain ships of the different types I would like to detect. (lets just say one category, ships, don't care what type of ships)3) I also need to have images that have a great variety of distance perspective for the different types of ships.

Ultimately, my thoughts are that the images need to reflect the distance, perspective, and types of ships I would ideally want to identify from the video. Seems simple enough.

However, there are a number of questions

Does the images need to be the same/similar resolution as the camera I'll be using, for best results?

Does the images all need to be the same resolution?Can I use a single image and just digitally zoom out on the image to give the illusion of different distances?

I'm sure there are a number of other questions that I'm not asking, or should be asking. Are there any guide lines available for creating a solid collection of images to use when creating the collection of images for training and validation?