method for loading traffic sign images into memory

load_images.py

def load_images(data_directory):
  
  # lists to store Images and labels
  images = []
  labels = []
  log_index = 0
  # get list of all directories present in the data_directory path
  directories = [dir for dir in os.listdir(data_directory)
                 if os.path.isdir(os.path.join(data_directory,dir))] # to make sure that we include only directories and not any files present in the folder
  print(len(directories))
  for dir in directories:
    current_directory = os.path.join(data_directory,dir)
    # Gather all fileNames in the given directory to load images into images array using sklearn
    file_names = [os.path.join(current_directory,file) 
                  for file in os.listdir(current_directory)
                  if file.endswith('.ppm')
                 ]
    
    # Load all given Images into the Images array
    for file in file_names:
      images.append(skimage.data.imread(file))
      labels.append(int(dir))
      log_index+=1
      # print('Loading File: {0}'.format(log_index))
  print('Successfully Loadded  {0} images!'.format(len(images)))
  return np.array(images),np.array(labels)