tensorflow and tensorboard: step vs relative

Question

The question is short: what does the 'relative' mean in tensorboard?

I understand that step correspond to the 'step' parameter in summary_writer.add_summary() call, but the 'relative' change x axis to something I don't understand.

the 'wall' is probably for wall time.

Also, when using 'step', multiple runs will have zigzag plot, but that is another issue.

Thanks for you input.

Answer 1

With the relative-option the x-axis shows the wall time relative to the first data point. That typically means that it shows the number of hours since the training run was started.

This option is for example very useful if you want to compare the performance of two or more different training runs that weren't started simultaneously.