docs/LOADING.md

Loading

Hugging Face metadata

from datasets import load_dataset

repo = "deepdeltalab/CausalCascade"
rq2 = load_dataset(repo, "rq2_pairs", split="test")
print(rq2.select_columns("counterfactual_reference_video_path")[0])

The base_scenes and rq2_pairs viewers display native Image and Video columns. The counterfactuals viewer contains metadata and media paths. Image bytes are embedded in Parquet; video columns reference MP4 files in this repository using hf://datasets/deepdeltalab/CausalCascade@main/ URIs. The separate *_path columns remain repository-relative strings.

To inspect metadata without decoding native media:

rq2_metadata = rq2.remove_columns([
    "factual_initial_frame", "counterfactual_initial_frame",
    "factual_reference_video", "counterfactual_reference_video",
])

Native video decoding through datasets requires its compatible TorchCodec dependencies. The wrapper below uses OpenCV and removes the viewer columns before reading rows, so it retains its existing lazy-loading behavior.

Lazy PyTorch loading

Clone the dataset repository and install its lightweight wrapper:

pip install -e ".[video]"

from torch.utils.data import DataLoader
from causalcascade import CausalCascadeDataset, collate_fn

dataset = CausalCascadeDataset(
    repo_id="deepdeltalab/CausalCascade",
    subset="rq2_pairs",
    split="test",
    decode_images=True,
    decode_video=True,
    video_size=(480, 854),  # (height, width)
    video_frame_stride=2,
    load_annotations=True,
)

loader = DataLoader(dataset, batch_size=1, num_workers=4, collate_fn=collate_fn)
for batch in loader:
    factual_video = batch["factual_reference_video"]
    counterfactual_video = batch["counterfactual_reference_video"]
    break

Videos are decoded only inside __getitem__. video_size, video_frame_stride, and video_max_frames control memory use without changing the stored reference videos. Because videos may have different lengths, collate_fn stacks equal-shaped tensors and otherwise returns a list. Set decode_video=False to keep path strings without downloading videos.

The example's resizing and frame stride are loading conveniences, not the evaluation protocol. Use the complete stored rollouts and the companion metric code for official motion evaluation. For RQ2, use the matched Level 1 prompts and both factual/counterfactual references in each row; an edit instruction describes the intervention and is not a replacement generation prompt.

For a local checkout, replace repo_id with local_root="/path/to/CausalCascade".