Example: Gaussian Mixture Model Ellipsoids

Gaussian Mixture Model Ellipsoids

Plot the confidence ellipsoids of a mixture of two Gaussians obtained with Expectation Maximisation (GaussianMixture class) and Variational Inference (BayesianGaussianMixture class models with a Dirichlet process prior).

Both models have access to five components with which to fit the data. Note that the Expectation Maximisation model will necessarily use all five components while the Variational Inference model will effectively only use as many as are needed for a good fit. Here we can see that the Expectation Maximisation model splits some components arbitrarily, because it is trying to fit too many components, while the Dirichlet Process model adapts it number of state automatically.

This example doesn’t show it, as we’re in a low-dimensional space, but another advantage of the Dirichlet process model is that it