Tasks

Overview

The Tasks page contains elements and each of them relates to a separate task. They are sorted in creation order. Each element contains: the task name, preview, progress bar, button Open, and menu Actions. Each button is responsible for a menu Actions specific function:

• Export task dataset — download annotations or annotations and images in a specific format. More information is available in the export/import datasets section.
• Upload annotation upload annotations in a specific format. More information is available in the export/import datasets section.
• Automatic Annotation — automatic annotation with OpenVINO toolkit. Presence depends on how you build the CVAT instance.
• Backup task — make a backup of this task into a zip archive. Read more in the backup section.
• Move to project — Moving a task to a project (you can move only a task that does not belong to any project). In case of a label mismatch, you can create or delete necessary labels in the project/task. Some task labels can be matched with the target project labels.
• Organization - moving a task between your personal workspace or organizations. Only available for individual tasks (not tasks in a project). Please, refer to the Transfer between organizations section for details.
• Delete — delete task.

In the upper left corner, there is a search bar, using which you can find the task by assignee, task name etc. In the upper right corner, there are sorting, quick filters, and filter.

Filter

The filter works similarly to the filters for annotation, you can create rules from properties, operators, and values and group rules into groups. For more details, consult the filter section. Learn more about date and time selection.

For clear all filters press Clear filters.

Supported properties for tasks list

Select Open to go to task details.

Task details page

Task details is a task page that contains a preview, a progress bar, the details of the task (specified when the task was created), and the Jobs section.

The next actions are available on this page:

1. Change the task’s title.

2. Open Actions menu.

3. Change the issue tracker or open it if specified.

4. Change labels (available only if the task is not related to the project).

   You can add new labels or add attributes for the existing labels in the Raw mode or the Constructor mode. By selecting Copy you will copy the labels to the clipboard.

5. Assigned to — is used to assign a task to a person. Start typing an assignee’s name and/or choose the right person out of the dropdown list. In the list of users, you will only see the users of the organization where the task is created.

6. Cloud storage — view the cloud storage attached to the task and change it to another attached storage if needed.

Jobs is a list of all jobs for a particular task. Here you can find the next data:

• Jobs name with a hyperlink to it.
• Frame range — the frame interval.
• A stage of the job. The stage is specified by a drop-down list. There are three stages: annotation, validation, or acceptance. This value affects the task progress bar.
• A state of the job. The state can be changed by an assigned user in the menu inside the job. There are several possible states: new, in progress, rejected, completed.
• Duration — is the amount of time the job is being worked.
• Assignee is the user who is working on the job (annotator, reviewer, or corrector). You can start typing an assignee’s name and/or choose the right person out of the dropdown list.

You can filter or sort jobs by status, assignee, and updated date using the filters panel.

Follow a link inside Jobs section to start the annotation process. In some cases, you can have several links. It depends on the size of your task and Overlap Size and Segment Size parameters. To improve UX, only the first chunk of several frames will be loaded and you will be able to annotate the first images. Other frames will be loaded in the background.

How to create and configure an annotation task

To start annotating in CVAT, you must create an annotation task and specify its parameters.

Create a task

To create a task:

1. On the Tasks page, select +
2. Select Create new task.

Next, specify the task parameters in the configurator:

1. In the Name field, enter the name of the new task.

   

2. (Optional) From the Projects drop-down, select a project for the new task.
   Leave this field empty if you do not want to assign the task to any project.

   

   Note

   Following steps are valid if the task does not belong to a project.
   If the task has been assigned to a project, the project’s labels will be applied to the task.

3. On the Constructor tab, select Add label.
   The label constructor menu will open:

   

4. In the Label name field, enter the name of the label.

5. (Optional) To limit the use of the label to a certain shape tool, from the Label shape drop-down select the shape.

6. (Optional) Select the color for the label.

   

7. (Optional) Select Add an attribute and set up its properties.

8. Select Select files to upload files for annotation.

9. Select Continue to submit the label and start adding a new one
   or Cancel to terminate the current label and return you to the labels list.

10. Select Submit and open to submit the configuration and open the created task,
    or Submit and continue, to submit the configuration and start a new task.

Label shape

Labels (or classes) are categories of objects that you can annotate.

Label shape limits the use of the label to certain shape tool.

Any is the default setting that does not limit the use of the label to any particular shape tool.

For example, if you added:

• Label sun with the Label shape type ellipse
• Label car with the Label shape type any

As a result:

• The sun label will be available only for ellipse shape.

• The car label will be available for all shapes.

  

The tools on the Controls sidebar will be limited to the selected types of shapes.

For example, if you select Any, all tools will be available, but if you select Rectangle for all labels, only the Rectangle tool will be visible on the sidebar.

You can change the shape of the label as needed. This change will not affect the existing annotation.

For example, if you created objects using polygons and then changed the label shape to polylines, all previously created objects will remain polygons. However, you will not be able to add new polygon objects with the same label.

Add an attribute

Attribute is a property of an annotated object, such as color, model, or other quality.

For example, you have a label for face and want to specify the type of face. Instead of creating additional labels for male and female, you can use attributes to add this information.

There are two types of attributes:

• Immutable attributes are unique and do not change from frame to frame. For example, age, gender, and color.
• Mutable attributes are temporary and can change from frame to frame. For example, pose, quality, and truncated.

Added attributes will be available from the Objects menu:

To add an attribute:

1. Go to the Constructor tab and select Add attribute.

   

2. In the Name field, enter the attribute name.

3. In the drop-down menu, select the way to display the attribute in the Objects menu:

   • Select enables a drop-down list, from which you can select an attribute.
     If in the Attribute value field you add __undefined__, the drop-down list will have a blank value.
     This is useful for cases where the attribute of the object cannot be clarified:

     

   • Radio enables the selection of one option from several options.

   • Checkbox enables the selection of multiple options.

   • Text sets the attribute to a text field.

   • Number sets the attribute to numerical field in the following format: min;max;step.

4. In the Attribute values field, add attribute values.
   To separate values use Enter.
   To delete value, use Backspace or click x next to the value name.

5. (Optional) For mutable attributes, select Mutable.

6. (Optional) To set an attribute value as default, select it. The default value will change color to blue.

To delete an attribute, select Delete attribute.

Select files

There are several ways to upload files:

Data source	Description
My computer	Use this option to select files from your laptop or PC. To select file: 1. Select Select files field: . 2. Select files to upload.
Connected file share	Advanced option. Upload files from a local or cloud shared folder. Note, that you need to mount a fileshare first. For more information, consult Share path
Remote source	Enter a list of URLs (one per line) in the field.
Cloud Storage	Advanced option. To upload files from cloud storage, type the cloud storage name, (optional) choose the manifest file, and select the required files. For more information, consult Attach cloud storage. Use the search feature to find a file (by file name) from the connected cloud storage.

Editing labels in RAW format

The Raw is a way of working with labels for an advanced user.

It is useful when you need to copy labels from one independent task to another.

Raw presents label data in .json format with an option of editing and copying labels as text. The Done button applies the changes and the Reset button cancels the changes.

Data formats for a 3D task

To create a 3D task, you must prepare an archive with one of the following directory structures.

• Velodyne
• 3D pointcloud
• 3D Option 1
• 3D Option 2

  VELODYNE FORMAT
    Structure:
      velodyne_points/
        data/
          image_01.bin
          IMAGE_00 # unknown dirname,
                   # generally image_01.png can be under IMAGE_00, IMAGE_01, IMAGE_02, IMAGE_03, etc
      data/
        image_01.png

   3D POINTCLOUD DATA FORMAT
    Structure:
      pointcloud/
        00001.pcd
      related_images/
        00001_pcd/
          image_01.png # or any other image

    3D, DEFAULT DATAFORMAT Option 1
    Structure:
      data/
        image.pcd
        image.png

    3D, DEFAULT DATAFORMAT Option 2
    Structure:
      data/
        image_1/
            image_1.pcd
            context_1.png # or any other name
            context_2.jpg

Advanced configuration

Use advanced configuration to set additional parameters for the task and customize it to meet specific needs or requirements.

The following parameters are available:

To save and open the task, select Submit & Open .

To create several tasks in sequence, select Submit & Continue.

Created tasks will be displayed on the tasks page.

How to create and set up multiple tasks

Use Create multi tasks to create multiple video annotation tasks with the same configuration.

Check out:

• Create multi tasks
• Example
• Errors
• Advanced configuration

Create multi tasks

To create the multi tasks:

1. On the Tasks page select +.
2. Select Create multi tasks.

Next, specify the parameters in the task configurator:

1. In the Name field, enter the name of the new task:

   • Enter the name of the task
   • (Optional) {{index}} adds an index to the file in the set (starting from 0).
   • (Optional) {{file_name}} adds the file’s name to the task’s name.

2. (Optional) From the Projects drop-down, select a project for the tasks.
   Leave this field empty if you do not want to assign tasks to any project.

   

   Note

   Following steps are valid if the tasks do not belong to a project.
   If the tasks have been assigned to a project, the project’s labels will be applied to the tasks.

3. On the Constructor tab, select Add label.

4. In the Label name field, enter the name of the label.

5. (Optional) Select the color for the label.

6. (Optional) Select Add an attribute and set up its properties.

7. Select Select files to upload files for annotation.

   Note

   You cannot upload multiple tasks from the cloud storage.

8. Select Submit N tasks

Example

A step-by-step example for creating the multiple tasks:

1. In the Name field, enter the Create_multitask-{{index}}-{{file_name}}.

2. Add labels.

3. Select files.
   In case there are more than four files, only the total number of selected files will be displayed:

4. Select Submit N tasks

   

5. You will see a progress bar that shows the progress of the tasks being created:

   

6. Select Ok.

   

The result will look like the following:

Errors

During the process of adding multiple tasks, the following errors may occur:

Error	Description
	Wrong file format. You can add only video files.
	In the process of creating a task, CVAT was not able to process the video file. The name of the failed file will be displayed on the progress bar. To fix this issue: If you want to try again, click Retry failed tasks. If you want to skip the file, click OK.

Advanced configuration

Use advanced configuration to set additional parameters for the task and customize it to meet specific needs or requirements.

For more information, consult Advanced configuration