Set Up Your Data for Efficient Vector Storage and Ingestion in Atlas

You can convert your embeddings to BSON BinData vector subtype float32 or vector subtype int8 vectors. We recommend the BSON binData vector subtype for the following use cases:

You need to index quantized vectors from embedding models.
You have a large number of float vectors but want to reduce the storage and WiredTiger footprint (such as disk and memory usage) in mongod.

The BinData vector format requires about three times less disk space in your cluster compared to arrays of elements. It allows you to index your vectors with alternate types such as int8 and int1 vectors, reducing the memory needed to build the Atlas Vector Search index for your collection.

If you don't already have binData vectors, you can convert your embeddings to this format by using any supported driver before writing your data to a collection. This page walks you through the steps for converting your embeddings to the BinData vector subtype.

Supported Drivers

BSON BinData vector subtype float32 and int8 vector conversion is supported by PyMongo Driver v4.10 or later.

Prerequisites

To convert your embeddings to BSON BinData vector subtype, you need the following:

An Atlas cluster running MongoDB version 6.0.11, 7.0.2, or later.
Ensure that your IP address is included in your Atlas project's access list.
An environment to run interactive Python notebooks such as Colab.

Access to an embedding model that supports byte vector output.

The following embedding model providers support both int8 and int1 binData vectors:

Embedding Model Provider	Embedding Model
Cohere	`embed-english-v3.0`
Nomic	`nomic-embed-text-v1.5`
Jina	`jina-embeddings-v2-base-en`
Mixedbread	`mxbai-embed-large-v1`

You can use any of these embedding model providers to generate binData vectors.

Procedure

Create an interactive Python notebook by saving a file with the .ipynb extension, and then perform the following steps in the notebook. The examples in this procedure use sample data and Cohere's embed-english-v3.0 model. To try the example, replace values shown in curly brackets ({ }) with valid values.

Install the required libraries.

Run the following command to install the PyMongo Driver.

pip install pymongo

You must install PyMongo v4.10 or later driver.

Example

Install PyMongo and Cohere

pip --quiet install pymongo cohere

Load the data for which you want to generate BSON vectors in your notebook.

Example

Sample Data to Import

data = [
   "The Great Wall of China is visible from space.",
   "The Eiffel Tower was completed in Paris in 1889.",
   "Mount Everest is the highest peak on Earth at 8,848m.",
   "Shakespeare wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets during his lifetime.",
   "The Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo da Vinci.",
]

(Conditional) Generate embeddings from your data.

This step is required if you haven't yet generated embeddings from your data. If you've already generated embeddings, skip this step. To learn more about generating embeddings from your data, see How to Create Vector Embeddings.

Example

Generate Embeddings from Sample Data Using Cohere

import cohere
api_key = "{COHERE-API-KEY}"
co = cohere.Client(api_key)
generated_embeddings = co.embed(
   texts=data,
   model="embed-english-v3.0",
   input_type="search_document",
   embedding_types=["float", "int8"]
).embeddings
float32_embeddings = generated_embeddings.float
int8_embeddings = generated_embeddings.int8

Generate the BSON vectors from your embeddings.

You can use the PyMongo driver to convert your native vector embedding to BSON vectors.

Example

Define and Run a Function to Generate BSON Vectors

from bson.binary import Binary, BinaryVectorDtype
def generate_bson_vector(vector, vector_dtype):
   return Binary.from_vector(vector, vector_dtype)
# For all vectors in your collection, generate BSON vectors of float32 and int8 embeddings
bson_float32_embeddings = []
bson_int8_embeddings = []
for i, (f32_emb, int8_emb) in enumerate(zip(float32_embeddings, int8_embeddings)):
   bson_float32_embeddings.append(generate_bson_vector(f32_emb, BinaryVectorDtype.FLOAT32))
   bson_int8_embeddings.append(generate_bson_vector(int8_emb, BinaryVectorDtype.INT8))

Create documents with the BSON vector embeddings.

If you already have the BSON vector embeddings inside of documents in your collection, skip this step.

Example

Create Documents from the Sample Data

def create_docs_with_bson_vector_embeddings(bson_float32_embeddings, bson_int8_embeddings, data):
  docs = []
  for i, (bson_f32_emb, bson_int8_emb, text) in enumerate(zip(bson_float32_embeddings, bson_int8_embeddings, data)):
     doc = {
          "_id":i,
          "data": text,
          "{FIELD-NAME-FOR-INT8-TYPE}":bson_int8_emb,
          "{FIELD-NAME-FOR-FLOAT32-TYPE}":bson_f32_emb,
     }
     docs.append(doc)
  return docs
documents = create_docs_with_bson_vector_embeddings(bson_float32_embeddings, bson_int8_embeddings, data)

Load your data into your Atlas cluster.

You can load your data from the Atlas UI and programmatically. To learn how to load your data from the Atlas UI, see Insert Your Data. The following steps and associated examples demonstrate how to load your data programmatically by using the PyMongo driver.

Connect to your Atlas cluster.

Example

import pymongo
MONGO_URI = "{ATLAS-CONNECTION-STRING}"
def get_mongo_client(mongo_uri):
  # establish the connection
  client = pymongo.MongoClient(mongo_uri)
if not MONGO_URI:
  print("MONGO_URI not set in environment variables")

Load the data into your Atlas cluster.
Example
client = pymongo.MongoClient(MONGO_URI) db = client["{DB-NAME}"] db.create_collection("{COLLECTION-NAME}") col = db["{COLLECTION-NAME}"] col.insert_many(documents)

Create the Atlas Vector Search index on the collection.

You can create Atlas Vector Search indexes by using the Atlas UI, Atlas CLI, Atlas Administration API, and MongoDB drivers. To learn more, see How to Index Fields for Vector Search.

Example

Create Index for the Sample Collection

import time
from pymongo.operations import SearchIndexModel
vector_search_index_definition = {
  "fields":[
    {
      "type": "vector",
      "path": "{FIELD-NAME-FOR-FLOAT32-TYPE}",
      "similarity": "euclidean",
      "numDimensions": 1024,
    },
    {
      "type": "vector",
      "path": "{FIELD-NAME-FOR-INT8-TYPE}",
      "similarity": "euclidean",
      "numDimensions": 1024,
    }
  ]
}
search_index_model = SearchIndexModel(definition=vector_search_index_definition, name="{INDEX-NAME}", type="vectorSearch")
col.create_search_index(model=search_index_model)

Define a function to run the Atlas Vector Search queries.

The function to run Atlas Vector Search queries must perform the following actions:

Convert the query text to a BSON vector.
Define the pipeline for the Atlas Vector Search query.

Example

def run_vector_search(query_text, collection, path):
  query_text_embeddings = co.embed(
    texts=[query_text],
    model="embed-english-v3.0",
    input_type="search_query",
    embedding_types=["float", "int8"]
  ).embeddings
  if path == "{FIELD-NAME-FOR-FLOAT32-TYPE}":
    query_vector = query_text_embeddings.float[0]
    vector_dtype = BinaryVectorDtype.FLOAT32
  else:
    query_vector = query_text_embeddings.int8[0]
    vector_dtype = BinaryVectorDtype.INT8
  bson_query_vector = generate_bson_vector(query_vector, vector_dtype)
  pipeline = [
    {
      '$vectorSearch': {
        'index': '{INDEX-NAME}',
        'path': path,
        'queryVector': bson_query_vector,
        'numCandidates': {NUMBER-OF-CANDIDATES-TO-CONSIDER},
        'limit': {NUMBER-OF-DOCUMENTS-TO-RETURN}
       }
     },
     {
       '$project': {
         '_id': 0,
         'data': 1,
         'score': { '$meta': 'vectorSearchScore' }
        }
     }
  ]
  return collection.aggregate(pipeline)

Run the Atlas Vector Search query.

You can run Atlas Vector Search queries programmatically. To learn more, see Run Vector Search Queries.

Example

from pprint import pprint
query_text = "tell me a science fact"
float32_results = run_vector_search(query_text, col, "{FIELD-NAME-FOR-FLOAT32-TYPE}")
int8_results = run_vector_search(query_text, col, "{FIELD-NAME-FOR-INT8-TYPE}")
print("results from float32 embeddings")
pprint(list(float32_results))
print("--------------------------------------------------------------------------")
print("results from int8 embeddings")
pprint(list(int8_results))

results from float32 embeddings
[{'data': 'Mount Everest is the highest peak on Earth at 8,848m.',
  'score': 0.4222325384616852},
 {'data': 'The Great Wall of China is visible from space.',
  'score': 0.4112812876701355},
 {'data': 'The Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo da Vinci.',
  'score': 0.3871753513813019},
 {'data': 'The Eiffel Tower was completed in Paris in 1889.',
  'score': 0.38428616523742676},
 {'data': 'Shakespeare wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets during his lifetime.',
  'score': 0.37546128034591675}]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
results from int8 embeddings
[{'data': 'Mount Everest is the highest peak on Earth at 8,848m.',
  'score': 4.619598996669083e-07},
 {'data': 'The Great Wall of China is visible from space.',
  'score': 4.5106872903488693e-07},
 {'data': 'The Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo da Vinci.',
  'score': 4.0036800896814384e-07},
 {'data': 'The Eiffel Tower was completed in Paris in 1889.',
  'score': 3.9345573554783186e-07},
 {'data': 'Shakespeare wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets during his lifetime.',
  'score': 3.797164538354991e-07}]

For an advanced demonstration of this procedure on sample data using Cohere's embed-english-v3.0 embedding model, see this notebook.

Back

How to Create Vector Embeddings

Create and Manage Indexes