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Manual

This section contains documents for CVAT simple and advanced users

1 - Basics

This section contains basic documents for CVAT users

1.1 - Registration & Account Access

CVAT.ai registration and account access.

To start to annotate in CVAT.ai, you need to create an account or log in to the existing account.

See:

To create account or log in, go to the CVAT.ai Cloud login page:

Note: By default authentication and registration with Google and GitHub work only for CVAT.ai Cloud.
If you want to use Google and GitHub authentication on a local installation, see Social auth configuration.

User registration

To register, do the following:

  1. Click Create an account.

    Create account

  2. Fill in all blank fields, accept terms of use, and click Create an account.

Account form


A username generates from the email automatically. You can edit it if needed.

Usernname generation

User registration with social accounts

To register with Google or GitHub, click the button with the name of the service, and follow instructions on the screen.

Account access

To access your account, do the following:

  1. Go to the login page.
  2. Enter username or email. The password field will appear.
  3. Enter the password and click Next.

To log in with Google or GitHub, click the button with the name of the service.

Password reset

To reset password, do the following:

  1. Go to the CVAT.ai Cloud page and click Forgot password?

    Reset password

  2. Enter email you used for registration and click Send.

  3. Open email and click on the link from CVAT.

  4. Enter new password in both fields and click Change password.

    Reset password

Change password

To change password, do the following:

  1. Log in to your CVAT account.

  2. In the top right corner, click on the arrow next to your nickname.

  3. Select Change password.

  4. Follow instructions on the screen.

    Reset password

1.2 - Create annotation task

How to create and configure an annotation task.

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

To create a task, on the Tasks page click + and select Create new task.

Create new task

See:

Create a task

To create a new task, open task configurator:

Basic configurator

And specify the following parameters:

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

    Name of 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.

    Select 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, click Add label.
    The label constructor menu will open:

    Label constructor

  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.

    label shape and color

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

  8. Click Select files to upload files for annotation.

  9. Click 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. Click 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, 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.

    Label shape

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.

Note: You cannot apply the Label shape to the AI and OpenCV tools, these tools will always be available.

Type control 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.

Note: You cannot change the shape of the skeleton label.
The Label shape field for the skeleton label is disabled.

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:

Attributes

To add an attribute, do the following:

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

    Attributes

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

  3. From the drop-down, select 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:

    • Undefined value

    • 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 the default attribute, hover over it with mouse cursor and click on it. The default attribute will change color to blue.

Default attribute

To delete an attribute, click 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. Click on the Select files field:
Select files.
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, see 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, see 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.

Note: Be careful with changing the raw specification of an existing task/project. Removing any “id” properties will lead to losing existing annotations. This property will be removed automatically from any text you insert to this field.

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.

Note: You can’t mix 2D and 3D data in the same task.

  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:

Element Description
Sorting method Note: Does not work for the video data.

Several methods to sort the data.
For example, the sequence 2.jpeg, 10.jpeg, 1.jpeg after sorting will be:

  • Lexicographica: 1.jpeg, 10.jpeg, 2.jpeg
  • Natural: 1.jpeg, 2.jpeg, 10.jpeg
  • Predefined: 2.jpeg, 10.jpeg, 1.jpeg
  • Random uploads data in random order.
  • Use zip/video chunks Use this parameter to divide your video or image dataset for annotation into short video clips a zip file of frames.
    Zip files are larger but do not require decoding on the client side, and video clips are smaller but require decoding.
    It is recommended to turn off this parameter for video tasks to reduce traffic between the client side and the server.
    Use cache Select checkbox, to enable on-the-fly data processing to reduce task creation time and store data in a cache with a policy of
    evicting less popular items.

    For more information, see Data preparation on the fly.
    Image Quality CVAT has two types of data: original quality and compressed. Original quality images are used for dataset export
    and automatic annotation. Compressed images are used only for annotations to reduce traffic between the server
    and client side.
    It is recommended to adjust the compression level only if the images contain small objects that are not
    visible in the original quality.
    Values range from 5 (highly compressed images) to 100 (not compressed
    Overlap Size Use this parameter to create overlapped segments, making tracking continuous from one segment to another.

    Note that this functionality only works for bounding boxes.

    This parameter has the following options:

    Interpolation task (video sequence). If you annotate with a bounding box on two adjacent segments, they will be
    merged into a single bounding box. In case the overlap is zero or the bounding box is inaccurate (not enclosing the object
    properly, misaligned or distorted) on the adjacent segments, it may be difficult to accurately interpole the object’s
    movement between the segments. As a result, multiple tracks will be created for the same object.

    Annotation task (independent images). If an object exists on overlapped segments with overlap greater than zero,
    and the annotation of these segments is done properly, then the segments will be automatically merged into a single
    object. If the overlap is zero or the annotation is inaccurate (not enclosing the object properly, misaligned, distorted) on the
    adjacent segments, it may be difficult to accurately track the object. As a result, multiple bounding boxes will be
    created for the same object.

    If the annotations on different segments (on overlapped frames) are very different, you will have two shapes
    for the same object.

    To avoid this, accurately annotate the object on the first segment and the same object on the second segment to create a track
    between two annotations.
    Segment size Use this parameter to divide a dataset into smaller parts. For example, if you want to share a dataset among multiple
    annotators, you can split it into smaller sections and assign each section to a separate job.
    This allows annotators to work on the same dataset concurrently.
    Start frame Defines the first frame of the video.
    Stop frame Defines the last frame of the video.
    Frame Step Use this parameter to filter video frames or images in a dataset. Specify frame step value to include only
    certain frames or images in the dataset.
    For example, if the frame step value is 25, the dataset will include every 25th frame or image. If a video
    has 100 frames, setting the frame step to 25 will include only frames 1, 26, 51, 76, and 100 in the dataset.
    This can be useful for reducing the size of the dataset, or for focusing on specific frames or images that are
    of particular interest.
    Chunk size Defines amount of frames to be packed in a chunk when send from client to server.
    The server defines automatically if the chunk is empty.
    Recommended values:
  • 1080p or less: 36
  • 2k or less: 8
  • 16 - 4k or less: 4
  • 8 - More: 1 - 4
  • Issue tracker Use this parameter to specify the issue tracker URL.
    Source storage Specify the source storage for importing resources like annotations and backups.
    If the task was assigned to the project, use the Use project source storage toggle to determine whether to
    use project values or specify new ones.
    Target storage Specify the target storage (local or cloud) for exporting resources like annotations and backups.
    If the task is created in the project, use the Use project target storage toggle to determine whether to
    use project values or specify new ones.

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

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

    Created tasks will be displayed on the tasks page.

    1.3 - Create multi tasks

    Step-by-step guide on how to create and set up multiple tasks

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

    To create the multi tasks, on the Tasks page click + and select Create multi tasks.

    Note: The Create multi tasks feature is available for videos only.

    See:

    Create multi tasks

    To add several tasks in one go, open the task configurator:

    Multitack configurator

    And specify the following parameters:

    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.

      Select 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, click Add label.

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

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

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

    7. Click Select files to upload files for annotation.

      Note: You cannot upload multiple tasks from the cloud storage.

    8. Click 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. Click Submit N tasks

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

    6. Click 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, see Advanced configuration

    1.4 - CVAT Annotation Interface

    This section describes CVAT annotation interface and it’s features

    This section of the documentation describes the annotation interface and all available options that you can use to annotate image data accurately and quickly.

    The interface includes the following areas:

    CVAT Interfaces

    1.4.1 - Navigation bar & Menu

    Features navigation arrows to switch between frames, provides access to main functions, and Menu.

    The navigation panel and drop-down Menu, allow you to switch between frames, change the annotation mode, save your work, and more.

    CVAT Navbar

    See:

    Use the Menu options to upload and download annotations, change the status of the job, and access other features listed in the table below:

    Panel Item                             Description                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
    Upload annotations Upload annotations into a task.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
    Export as a dataset Download a dataset in one of the supported formats.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
    Remove annotations Delete all annotations for the current job.
    Use Select range to remove annotations for a specific range of frames.
    Enable the Delete only keyframe for tracks checkbox to delete only keyframes from the tracks within the selected range.

                                                                                                                                                                                   
    Run actions Run annotation actions on the annotated dataset. Annotations action is a feature that allows you to modify a bulk of annotations on many frames. It supports only shape objects.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
    Open the task Opens a page with details about the task.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
    Change job state Changes the state of the job:
    • New: The job is newly created and has not been started yet. It is waiting for annotation work to begin.
    • In Progress: The job is currently being worked on. Annotations are being added or edited.
    • Rejected: The job has been reviewed and deemed unsatisfactory or incorrect. It requires revisions and further work.
    • Completed: The job has been finished, reviewed, and approved. No further changes are necessary.
      Finish the job Saves annotations and sets job state to Completed.

      Use the navigation bar to save annotation results, switch between frames, and access other features listed in the tables below.

      Save, Undo, Done

      Use the following buttons, to save your work, undo changes, and move tasks to done.

      Function                                           Description                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
      Save work

         
      Saves annotations for the current job. The button indicates the saving process.                                                                                                                                                                                                                
      Undo/Redo

      Use buttons to undo actions or redo them.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
      Done

               
      Used to complete the creation of the object. This button appears only when the object is being created.                                                                                                                                                                                                    
      Block

             
      Used to pause automatic line creation when drawing a polygon with OpenCV Intelligent scissors. Also used to postpone server requests when creating an object using AI Tools.

      Overview of how to navigate through frames within the interface, with detailed descriptions provided in the table below.

      Navigation Controls

      Function                                                                         Description                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
      Go to the first/last frame

      First last frame controls            
      Navigate to the first or the last frame of the sequence.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
      Go back with a step/Go next with a step

      Go to a step controls
      Move to the previous or next frame by a predefined step.

      Shortcuts:
    • C — previous frame.
    • V — next frame.

      Default step size is 10 frames. To modify this, navigate to Nickname > Settings > Player Step.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
    • Go back/Go next

      Go back and go forth controls                    
      Navigate to the neighboring frames.

      Shortcuts:
    • D — previous frame.
    • F — next frame.

      Go back/Go next buttons are customizable:



      To customize, right-click on the button and select one of three options (left to right):
      1. The default setting moves to the next or previous frame (step size is 1 frame).
      2. Move to the next or previous frame that contains objects (e.g., filtered). For more information, refer to Filters.
      3. Move to the next or previous frame without annotations. Use this option to quickly locate missed frames.
      .
    • Play/Pause

      Play and pause                              
      Switch between playing and pausing the sequence of frames or set of images.
      Shortcut: Space.
      To adjust the playback speed, go to Nickname > Settings > Player Speed.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
      Go to the specific frame

      Go to the specific frame                    
      Enter the number of the frame you want to go to and press Enter.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
      Delete frame

      Delete frame                            
      Click to delete current frame.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

      Job information and Annotation Mode switcher

      This section outlines various functionalities, including how to switch to the fullscreen player mode, access job information, and use the Workspace Switcher to toggle between different annotation and QA modes.

      Function                                         Description                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
      Fullscreen

      Fullscreen
      The fullscreen player mode. The keyboard shortcut is F11.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
      Info

      Info    
      Open the job info.



      Overview:
      • Assignee - the individual to whom the job is assigned.
      • Reviewer– the user tasked with conducting the review. For more information, see Manual QA
      • Start frame - the number of the first frame in this job.
      • Stop frame - the number of the last frame in this job.
      • Frames - the total number of frames in the job.

      Annotations Statistics table displays the number of created shapes, categorized by labels (e.g., vehicle, person) and the type of annotation (shape, track), as well as the count of manual and interpolated frames.
      Filters

       
      Switches on Filters.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
      Workplace Switcher The drop-down list to swithc between different annotation modes:



      Overview:
      • Standart – default mode.
      • Attribute – annotation with Attributes
      • Single ShapeSingle shape annotation mode.
      • Tag annotation- annotation with Tags
      • ReviewManual QA mode.                                                                                                                                                                              

      1.4.2 - Controls sidebar

      Offers tools for navigating within the image, annotation tools, and additional options to merge, split, and group labels.

      Navigation block - contains tools for moving and rotating images.

      Icon Description
      Cursor (Esc)- a basic annotation pedacting tool.
      Move the image- a tool for moving around the image without
      the possibility of editing.
      Rotate- two buttons to rotate the current frame
      a clockwise (Ctrl+R) and anticlockwise (Ctrl+Shift+R).
      You can enable Rotate all images in the settings to rotate all the images in the job

      Zoom

      Zoom block - contains tools for image zoom.

      Icon Description
      Fit image- fits image into the workspace size.
      Shortcut - double click on an image
      Select a region of interest- zooms in on a selected region.
      You can use this tool to quickly zoom in on a specific part of the frame.

      Shapes

      Shapes block - contains all the tools for creating shapes.

      Icon Description Links to section
      AI Tools AI Tools
      OpenCV OpenCV
      Rectangle Shape mode; Track mode;
      Drawing by 4 points
      Polygon Annotation with polygons; Track mode with polygons
      Polyline Annotation with polylines
      Points Annotation with points
      Ellipses Annotation with ellipses
      Cuboid Annotation with cuboids
      Brushing tools Annotation with brushing
      Tag Annotation with tags
      Open an issue Review (available only in review mode)

      Edit

      Edit block - contains tools for editing tracks and shapes.

      Icon Description Links to section
      Merge Shapes(M) - starts/stops the merging shapes mode. Track mode (basics)
      Group Shapes (G) - starts/stops the grouping shapes mode. Shape grouping
      Split - splits a track. Track mode (advanced)
      Split - splits a track. Track mode (advanced)
      Joins multiple labels into one Joining mask tool
      Slices one label into several. Slice mask/polygon

      Move image

      Switching between user interface modes.

      1. Use arrows below to move to the next/previous frame. Use the scroll bar slider to scroll through frames. Almost every button has a shortcut. To get a hint about a shortcut, just move your mouse pointer over an UI element.

      2. To navigate the image, use the button on the controls sidebar. Another way an image can be moved/shifted is by holding the left mouse button inside an area without annotated objects. If the Mouse Wheel is pressed, then all annotated objects are ignored. Otherwise the a highlighted bounding box will be moved instead of the image itself.

      3. You can use the button on the sidebar controls to zoom on a region of interest. Use the button Fit the image to fit the image in the workspace. You can also use the mouse wheel to scale the image (the image will be zoomed relatively to your current cursor position).

      1.4.3 - Objects sidebar

      Displays annotated objects and includes a label filter, lists of objects (current frame) and labels (objects on the frame), and appearance settings.

      In the objects sidebar, you can see the list of available objects on the current frame. The following figure is an example of how the list might look like:

      Shape mode Track mode

      Objects properties

      Filter input box

      The way how to use filters is described in the advanced guide here.

      List of objects

      • Switch lock property for all - switches lock property of all objects in the frame.
      • Switch hidden property for all - switches hide the property of all objects in the frame.
      • Expand/collapse all - collapses/expands the details field of all objects in the frame.
      • Sorting - sort the list of objects: updated time, ID - accent, ID - descent

      Objects on the sidebar

      The type of shape can be changed by selecting the Label property. For instance, it can look like shown in the figure below:

      Object action menu

      The action menu calls up the button:

      The action menu contains:

      • Create object URL - puts a link to an object on the clipboard. After you open the link, this object will be filtered.

      • Make a copy - copies an object. The keyboard shortcut is Ctrl + C > Ctrl + V.

      • Propagate function copies the form to multiple frames and displays a dialog box where you can specify the number of copies or the frame to which you want to copy the object. The keyboard shortcut is Ctrl + B. On how to propagate only filtered shapes, see Shapes converter
        There are two options available:

        • Propagate forward (Fw propagate) creates a copy of the object on N subsequent frames at the same position.
        • Propagate backward (Back propagate) creates a copy of the object on N previous frames at the same position.

      • To background - moves the object to the background. The keyboard shortcut - or _

      • To foreground - moves the object to the foreground. The keyboard shortcut + or =

      • Change instance color- choosing a color using the color picker (available only in instance mode).

      • Remove - removes the object. The keyboard shortcut Del, Shift+Del.

      A shape can be locked to prevent its modification or moving by an accident. Shortcut to lock an object: L.

      A shape can be Occluded. Shortcut: Q. Such shapes have dashed boundaries.

      You can change the way an object is displayed on a frame (show or hide).

      Switch pinned property - when enabled, a shape cannot be moved by dragging or dropping.

      **Tracker switcher **- enable/disable tracking for the object.

      By clicking on the Details button you can collapse or expand the field with all the attributes of the object.


      Labels

      In this tab, you can lock or hide objects of a certain label. To change the color for a specific label, you need to go to the task page and select the color by clicking the edit button, this way you will change the label color for all jobs in the task.

      Fast label change

      You can change the label of an object using hotkeys. In order to do it, you need to assign a number (from 0 to 9) to labels. By default numbers 1,2…0 are assigned to the first ten labels. To assign a number, click on the button placed at the right of a label name on the sidebar.

      After that, you will be able to assign a corresponding label to an object by hovering your mouse cursor over it and pressing Ctrl + Num(0..9).

      In case you do not point the cursor to the object, pressing Ctrl + Num(0..9) will set a chosen label as default, so that the next object you create (use the N key) will automatically have this label assigned.


      Appearance

      Color By options

      Change the color scheme of the annotation:

      • Instance — every shape has a random color

      • Group — every group of shape has its own random color, ungrouped shapes are white

      • Label — every label (e.g. car, person) has its own random color

        You can change any random color pointing to a needed box on a frame or on an object sidebar.

      Fill Opacity slider

      Change the opacity of every shape in the annotation.

      Selected Fill Opacity slider

      Change the opacity of the selected object’s fill. It is possible to change the opacity while drawing an object in the case of rectangles, polygons, and cuboids.

      Outlines borders checkbox

      You can change a special shape border color by clicking on the Eyedropper icon.

      Show bitmap checkbox

      If enabled all shapes are displayed in white and the background is black.

      Show projections checkbox

      Enables/disables the display of auxiliary perspective lines. Only relevant for cuboids

      Hide objects sidebar

      Hide - the button hides the object’s sidebar.

      1.4.4 - CVAT Workspace

      The main annotation area where images and videos are displayed for annotation..

      In CVAT the Workspace serves as a work area where annotators interact with images, videos, and the various tools available to create high-quality annotations.

      Image quality panel

      See:

      Image settings in CVAT

      The Image settings panel serves as a versatile tool for fine-tuning the visual aspects of your image. Whether you need to brighten the image, increase contrast, or make other adjustments, this panel is your go-to.

      Additionally, the panel allows you to overlay a grid on the image for more precise annotation.

      Note: Adjusting the image settings only alters how the pictures are displayed. The images themselves will remain unmodified and unchanged.

      By default, the Image settings panel is not visible. To access it, click on the Arrow Up (Image Grid Icon) icon located at the bottom of the workspace.

      Image quality panel

      Adding grid overlay to image in CVAT

      To add the grid to the image, do the following:

      1. Open the Image Settings panel.
      2. Locate and check the box that allows you to overlay a grid on the image.
      3. Specify the grid cell size in square millimeters by entering the desired number in the Size field.
      4. From the Color drop-down list, select the color of the grid.
      5. Use the Opacity slider to change the transparency of the grid overlay.

      Changing color settings of image in CVAT

      To change the color setting of the image is CVAT, do the following:

      1. Open the Image Settings panel.
      2. Use the slider to change the color quality.

      There are four color quality settings in CVAT:

      Brightness increases and decreases the overall lightness of the image:

      Image Brightness

      Contrast is the range of brightness, from lightest to darkest, in an image.

      Image Brightness

      Saturation describes the intensity of the color.

      Image Saturation

      Gamma correction can be used to control the overall brightness of an image

      Gamma Correction

      To reset the setting to default values, click Reset color settings

      Adding layers and Z-axis slider

      Z-axis Slider enables you to add annotation layers while hiding the layers positioned beyond.

      You can also move between layers by moving the slider to the layer you need.

      The slider becomes active when multiple Z-layers are present within a frame. Click + on the slider to add a new layer; upon pressing it, a new layer is automatically created and activated.

      You can also relocate objects between layers using the + and - keys.

      Z-Order Slider

      Interacting with Objects

      The workspace is also equipped with the following features:

      • Right-clicking an object opens the Object Card. This interface contains essential controls for modifying the object’s label and attributes, as well as providing access to an action menu.

        Object card

      • Right-clicking on a polygon point will open a menu, from which you can Delete point or Set start point.

        Polygon menu

      1.5 - Jobs page

      On the jobs page, users (for example, with the worker role) can see the jobs that are assigned to them without having access to the task page, as well as track progress, sort and apply filters to the job list.

      On the job page there is a list of jobs presented in the form of tiles, where each tile is one job. Each element contains:

      • job ID
      • dimension 2D or 3D
      • preview
      • stage and state
      • when hovering over an element, you can see:
        • size
        • assignee
      • menu to navigate to a task, project, or bug tracker.

      To open the job in a new tab, click on the job by holding Ctrl.

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

      Filter

      Applying filter disables the quick 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, see the filter section. Learn more about date and time selection.

      For clear all filters press Clear filters.

      Supported properties for jobs list

      Properties Supported values Description
      State all the state names The state of the job
      (can be changed in the menu inside the job)
      Stage all the stage names The stage of the job
      (is specified by a drop-down list on the task page)
      Dimension 2D or 3D Depends on the data format
      (read more in creating an annotation task)
      Assignee username Assignee is the user who is working on the job.
      (is specified on task page)
      Last updated last modified date and time (or value range) The date can be entered in the dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm format
      or by selecting the date in the window that appears
      when you click on the input field
      ID number or range of job ID
      Task ID number or range of task ID
      Project ID number or range of project ID
      Task name task name Set when creating a task,
      can be changed on the (task page)
      Project name project name Specified when creating a project,
      can be changed on the (project section)

      1.6 - Tasks page

      Overview of the Tasks page.

      The tasks page contains elements and each of them relates to a separate task. They are sorted in creation order. Each element contains: task name, preview, progress bar, button Open, and menu Actions. Each button is responsible for a in 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 which does not belong to any project). In case of label mismatch, you can create or delete necessary labels in the project/task. Some task labels can be matched with the target project labels.
      • 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

      Applying filter disables the quick 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, see the filter section. Learn more about date and time selection.

      For clear all filters press Clear filters.

      Supported properties for tasks list

      Properties Supported values Description
      Dimension 2D or 3D Depends on the data format
      (read more in creating an annotation task)
      Status annotation, validation or completed
      Data video, images Depends on the data format
      (read more in creating an annotation task)
      Subset test, train, validation or custom subset [read more] [subset]
      Assignee username Assignee is the user who is working on the project, task or job.
      (is specified on task page)
      Owner username The user who owns the project, task, or job
      Last updated last modified date and time (or value range) The date can be entered in the dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm format
      or by selecting the date in the window that appears
      when you click on the input field
      ID number or range of job ID
      Project ID number or range of project ID
      Name name On the tasks page - name of the task,
      on the project page - name of the project
      Project name project name Specified when creating a project,
      can be changed on the (project section)

      Push Open button to go to task details.

      1.7 - Task details

      Overview of the Task details page.

      Task details is a task page which contains a preview, a progress bar and 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 issue tracker or open issue tracker if it is 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 clicking 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.
      • 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 filters panel.

      Follow a link inside Jobs section to start annotation process. In some cases, you can have several links. It depends on 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 first images. Other frames will be loaded in background.

      1.8 - Requests page

      The Requests page allows users to track the status of data processing jobs such as exporting annotations or importing datasets. Users can monitor progress, download results, and check for errors if they occur.

      Requests page

      Requests List

      On the Requests page, requests are displayed as cards. Each card contains the following details (if applicable):

      • Operation Name
      • Resource Link
      • Status of the Request
      • Timestamps:
        • Enqueued Date
        • Started Date
        • Finished Date
        • Result Expiration Date
      • Annotations Format
      • Menu to download the result or cancel a Queued job

      Currently supported operations include creating tasks, importing/exporting annotations and datasets, and backups.

      Statuses for Requests List

      The following statuses are used to indicate the state of each request:

      Status Description
      In Progress The requested job is being executed. The progress percentage is shown.
      Queued The requested job is waiting to be picked up by a worker.
      Finished The requested job is finished. Downloading the result is available.
      Failed The requested job cannot be executed due to an unexpected error. The error description is available.

      1.9 - 3D task workspace

      If the related_images folder contains any images, a context image will be available in the perspective window. The contextual image could be compared to 3D data and would help to identify the labels of marked objects.

      Perspective – a main window for work with objects in a 3D task.

      Projections - projections are tied to an object so that a cuboid is in the center and looks like a rectangle. Projections show only the selected object.

      • Top – a projection of the view from above.
      • Side – a projection of the left side of the object.
      • Front - a frontal projection of the object.

      1.10 - Standard 3D mode (basics)

      Standard 3d mode - Designed to work with 3D data. The mode is automatically available if you add PCD or Kitty BIN format data when you create a task. read more

      You can adjust the size of the projections, to do so, simply drag the boundary between the projections.

      1.11 - Settings

      To open the settings open the user menu in the header and select the settings item or press F2.

      Settings have two tabs:

      In tab Player you can:

      • Control step of C and V shortcuts.
      • Control speed of Space/Play button.
      • Select canvas background color. You can choose a background color or enter manually (in RGB or HEX format).
      • Reset zoom Show every image in full size or zoomed out like previous (it is enabled by default for interpolation mode and disabled for annotation mode).
      • Rotate all images checkbox — switch the rotation of all frames or an individual frame.
      • Smooth image checkbox — smooth image when zoom-in it.
        smoothed pixelized

      In tab Workspace you can:

      • Enable auto save checkbox — turned off by default.

      • Auto save interval (min) input box — 15 minutes by default.

      • Show all interpolation tracks checkbox — shows hidden objects on the side panel for every interpolated object (turned off by default).

      • Always show object details - show text for an object on the canvas not only when the object is activated:

      • Content of a text - setup of the composition of the object details:

        • ID - object identifier.
        • Attributes - attributes of the object.
        • Label - object label.
        • Source- source of creating of objects MANUAL, AUTO or SEMI-AUTO.
        • Descriptions - description of attributes.
      • Position of a text - text positioning mode selection:

        • Auto - the object details will be automatically placed where free space is.
        • Center - the object details will be embedded to a corresponding object if possible.
      • Font size of a text - specifies the text size of the object details.

      • Automatic bordering - enable automatic bordering for polygons and polylines during drawing/editing. For more information To find out more, go to the section annotation with polygons.

      • Intelligent polygon cropping - activates intelligent cropping when editing the polygon (read more in the section edit polygon

      • Show tags on frame - shows/hides frame tags on current frame

      • Attribute annotation mode (AAM) zoom margin input box — defines margins (in px) for shape in the attribute annotation mode.

      • Control points size — defines a size of any interactable points in the tool (polygon’s vertices, rectangle dragging points, etc.)

      • Default number of points in polygon approximation With this setting, you can choose the default number of points in polygon. Works for serverless interactors and OpenCV scissors.

      • Click Save to save settings (settings will be saved on the server and will not change after the page is refreshed). Click Cancel or press F2 to return to the annotation.

      1.12 - Types of shapes

      List of shapes available for annotation.

      There are several shapes with which you can annotate your images:

      • Rectangle or Bounding box
      • Polygon
      • Polyline
      • Points
      • Ellipse
      • Cuboid
      • Cuboid in 3d task
      • Skeleton
      • Tag

      And there is how they all look like:

      Tag - has no shape in the workspace, but is displayed in objects sidebar.

      1.13 - Shape mode (basics)

      Usage examples and basic operations available during annotation in shape mode.

      Usage examples:

      • Create new annotations for a set of images.
      • Add/modify/delete objects for existing annotations.
      1. You need to select Rectangle on the controls sidebar:

        Before you start, select the correct Label (should be specified by you when creating the task) and Drawing Method (by 2 points or by 4 points):

      2. Creating a new annotation in Shape mode:

        • Create a separate Rectangle by clicking on Shape.

        • Choose the opposite points. Your first rectangle is ready!

        • To learn more about creating a rectangle read here.

        • It is possible to adjust boundaries and location of the rectangle using a mouse. Rectangle’s size is shown in the top right corner , you can check it by clicking on any point of the shape. You can also undo your actions using Ctrl+Z and redo them with Shift+Ctrl+Z or Ctrl+Y.

      3. You can see the Object card in the objects sidebar or open it by right-clicking on the object. You can change the attributes in the details section. You can perform basic operations or delete an object by clicking on the action menu button.

      4. The following figure is an example of a fully annotated frame with separate shapes.

        Read more in the section shape mode (advanced).

      1.14 - Track mode (basics)

      Usage examples and basic operations available during annotation in track mode.

      Usage examples:

      • Create new annotations for a sequence of frames.
      • Add/modify/delete objects for existing annotations.
      • Edit tracks, merge several rectangles into one track.
      1. Like in the Shape mode, you need to select a Rectangle on the sidebar, in the appearing form, select the desired Label and the Drawing method.

      2. Creating a track for an object (look at the selected car as an example):

        • Create a Rectangle in Track mode by clicking on Track.

        • In Track mode the rectangle will be automatically interpolated on the next frames.

        • The cyclist starts moving on frame #2270. Let’s mark the frame as a key frame. You can press K for that or click the star button (see the screenshot below).

        • If the object starts to change its position, you need to modify the rectangle where it happens. It isn’t necessary to change the rectangle on each frame, simply update several keyframes and the frames between them will be interpolated automatically.

        • Let’s jump 30 frames forward and adjust the boundaries of the object. See an example below:

        • After that the rectangle of the object will be changed automatically on frames 2270 to 2300:

      3. When the annotated object disappears or becomes too small, you need to finish the track. You have to choose Outside Property, shortcut O.

      4. If the object isn’t visible on a couple of frames and then appears again, you can use the Merge feature to merge several individual tracks into one.

        • Create tracks for moments when the cyclist is visible:

        • Click Merge button or press key M and click on any rectangle of the first track and on any rectangle of the second track and so on:

        • Click Merge button or press M to apply changes.

        • The final annotated sequence of frames in Interpolation mode can look like the clip below:

          Read more in the section track mode (advanced).

      1.15 - 3D Object annotation

      Overview of basic operations available when annotating 3D objects.

      Use the 3D Annotation tool for labeling 3D objects and scenes, such as vehicles, buildings, landscapes, and others.

      See:

      The 3D annotation canvas looks like the following

      3D canvas

      Note: if you added contextual images to the dataset, the canvas will include them. For more information, see Contextual images

      For information on the available tools, see Controls sidebar.

      You can navigate, using the mouse, or navigation keys:

      You can also use keyboard shortcuts to navigate:

      Action Keys
      Camera rotation Shift + Arrow (Up, Down, Left, Right)
      Left/Right Alt+J/ Alt+L
      Up/down Alt+U/ Alt+O
      Zoom in/ou Alt+K/ Alt+I

      Annotation with cuboids

      There are two options available for 3D annotation:

      • Shape: for tasks like object detection.
      • Track: uses interpolation to predict the position of objects in subsequent frames. A unique ID will be assigned to each object and maintained throughout the sequence of images.

      Annotation with shapes

      To add a 3D shape, do the following:

      1. On the objects pane, select Draw new cuboid > select the label from the drop-down list > Shape.

      1. The cursor will be followed by a cuboid. Place the cuboid on the 3D scene.

      1. Use projections to adjust the cuboid. Click and hold the left mouse button to edit the label shape on the projection.

      1. (Optional) Move one of the four points to change the size of the cuboid.

      1. (Optional) To rotate the cuboid, click on the middle point and then drag the cuboid up/down or to left/right.

      Tracking with cuboids

      To track with cuboids, do the following:

      1. On the objects pane, select Draw new cuboid > select the label from the drop-down list > Track.

      2. The cursor will be followed by a cuboid. Place the cuboid on the 3D scene.

      3. Use projections to adjust the cuboid. Click and hold the left mouse button to edit the label shape on the projection.

      1. (Optional) Move one of the four points to change the size of the cuboid.

      1. (Optional) To rotate the cuboid, click on the middle point and then drag the cuboid up/down or to left/right.

      1. Move several frames forward. You will see the cuboid you’ve added in frame 1. Adjust it, if needed.

      2. Repeat to the last frame with the presence of the object you are tracking.

      For more information about tracking, see Track mode

      1.16 - Attribute annotation mode (basics)

      Usage examples and basic operations available in attribute annotation mode.
      • In this mode you can edit attributes with fast navigation between objects and frames using a keyboard. Open the drop-down list in the top panel and select Attribute annotation Mode.

      • In this mode objects panel change to a special panel :

      • The active attribute will be red. In this case it is gender . Look at the bottom side panel to see all possible shortcuts for changing the attribute. Press key 2 on your keyboard to assign a value (female) for the attribute or select from the drop-down list.

      • Press Up Arrow/Down Arrow on your keyboard or click the buttons in the UI to go to the next/previous attribute. In this case, after pressing Down Arrow you will be able to edit the Age attribute.

      • Use Right Arrow/Left Arrow keys to move to the previous/next image with annotation.

      To see all the hot keys available in the attribute annotation mode, press F2. Read more in the section attribute annotation mode (advanced).

      1.17 - Vocabulary

      List of terms pertaining to annotation in CVAT.

      Label

      Label is a type of an annotated object (e.g. person, car, vehicle, etc.)


      Attribute

      Attribute is a property of an annotated object (e.g. color, model, quality, etc.). There are two types of attributes:

      Unique

      Unique immutable and can’t be changed from frame to frame (e.g. age, gender, color, etc.)

      Temporary

      Temporary mutable and can be changed on any frame (e.g. quality, pose, truncated, etc.)


      Track

      Track is a set of shapes on different frames which corresponds to one object. Tracks are created in Track mode


      Annotation

      Annotation is a set of shapes and tracks. There are several types of annotations:

      • Manual which is created by a person
      • Semi-automatic which is created mainly automatically, but the user provides some data (e.g. interpolation)
      • Automatic which is created automatically without a person in the loop

      Approximation

      Approximation allows you to reduce the number of points in the polygon. Can be used to reduce the annotation file and to facilitate editing polygons.


      Trackable

      Trackable object will be tracked automatically if the previous frame was a latest keyframe for the object. More details in the section trackers.


      Mode

      Interpolation

      Mode for video annotation, which uses track objects. Only objects on keyframes are manually annotation, and intermediate frames are linearly interpolated.

      Related sections:

      Annotation

      Mode for images annotation, which uses shape objects.

      Related sections:


      Dimension

      Depends on the task data type that is defined when the task is created.

      2D

      The data format of 2d tasks are images and videos. Related sections:

      3D

      The data format of 3d tasks is a cloud of points. Data formats for a 3D task

      Related sections:


      State

      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.


      Stage

      Stage of the job. The stage is specified with the drop-down list on the task page. There are three stages: annotation, validation or acceptance. This value affects the task progress bar.


      Subset

      A project can have subsets. Subsets are groups for tasks that make it easier to work with the dataset. It could be test, train, validation or custom subset.


      Credentials

      Under credentials is understood Key & secret key, Account name and token, Anonymous access, Key file. Used to attach cloud storage.


      Resource

      Under resource is understood bucket name or container name. Used to attach cloud storage.

      1.18 - Cloud storages page

      Overview of the cloud storages page.

      The cloud storages page contains elements, each of them relating to a separate cloud storage.  Each element contains: preview, cloud storage name, provider, creation and update info, status, ? button for displaying the description and the actions menu.

      Each button in the action menu is responsible for a specific function:

      • Update — update this cloud storage
      • Delete — delete cloud storage.

      This preview will appear when it is impossible to get a real preview (e.g. storage is empty or invalid credentials were used).

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

      Filter

      Applying filter disables the quick 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, see the filter section. Learn more about date and time selection.

      For clear all filters press Clear filters.

      Supported properties for cloud storages list

      Properties Supported values Description
      ID number or range of task ID
      Provider type AWS S3, Azure, Google cloud
      Credentials type Key & secret key, Account name and token,
      Anonymous access, Key file
      Resource name Bucket name or container name
      Display name Set when creating cloud storage
      Description Description of the cloud storage
      Owner username The user who owns the project, task, or job
      Last updated last modified date and time (or value range) The date can be entered in the dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm format
      or by selecting the date in the window that appears
      when you click on the input field

      Click the + button to attach a new cloud storage.

      1.19 - Attach cloud storage

      Instructions on how to attach cloud storage using UI

      In CVAT you can use AWS S3, Azure Blob Storage and Google Cloud Storage storages to import and export image datasets for your tasks.

      See:

      AWS S3

      Create a bucket

      To create bucket, do the following:

      1. Create an AWS account.

      2. Go to console AWS-S3, and click Create bucket.

      3. Specify the name and region of the bucket. You can also copy the settings of another bucket by clicking on the Choose bucket button.

      4. Enable Block all public access. For access, you will use access key ID and secret access key.

      5. Click Create bucket.

      A new bucket will appear on the list of buckets.

      Upload data

      Note: manifest file is optional.

      You need to upload data for annotation and the manifest.jsonl file.

      1. Prepare data. For more information, see prepare the dataset.

      2. Open the bucket and click Upload.

      3. Drag the manifest file and image folder on the page and click Upload:

      Access permissions

      Authenticated access

      To add access permissions, do the following:

      1. Go to IAM and click Add users.

      2. Set User name and enable Access key - programmatic access.

      3. Click Next: Permissions.

      4. Click Create group, enter the group name.

      5. Use search to find and select:

        • For read-only access: AmazonS3ReadOnlyAccess.
        • For full access: AmazonS3FullAccess.

      6. (Optional) Add tags for the user and go to the next page.

      7. Save Access key ID and Secret access key.

      For more information, see Creating an IAM user in your AWS account

      Anonymous access

      On how to grant public access to the bucket, see Configuring block public access settings for your S3 buckets

      Attach AWS S3 storage

      To attach storage, do the following:

      1. Log into CVAT and in the separate tab open your bucket page.
      2. In the CVAT, on the top menu select Cloud storages > on the opened page click +.

      Fill in the following fields:

      CVAT AWS S3
      Display name Preferred display name for your storage.
      Description (Optional) Add description of storage.
      Provider From drop-down list select AWS S3.
      Bucket name Name of the Bucket.
      Authentication type Depends on the bucket setup:
    • Key id and secret access key pair: available on IAM.
    • Anonymous access: for anonymous access. Public access to the bucket must be enabled.
    • Region (Optional) Choose a region from the list or add a new one. For more information, see Available locations.
      Prefix (Optional) Prefix is used to filter bucket content. By setting a default prefix, you ensure that only data from a specific folder in the cloud is used in CVAT. This will affect which files you see when creating a task with cloud data.
      Manifests (Optional) Click + Add manifest and enter the name of the manifest file with an extension. For example: manifest.jsonl.

      After filling in all the fields, click Submit.

      AWS S3 manifest file

      Note: manifest file is optional.

      To prepare the manifest file, do the following:

      1. Go to AWS CLI and run script for prepare manifest file.
      2. Perform the installation, following the aws-shell manual,
        You can configure credentials by running aws configure.
        You will need to enter Access Key ID and Secret Access Key as well as the region.
      aws configure
      Access Key ID: <your Access Key ID>
      Secret Access Key: <your Secret Access Key>
      
      1. Copy the content of the bucket to a folder on your computer:
      aws s3 cp <s3://bucket-name> <yourfolder> --recursive
      
      1. After copying the files, you can create a manifest file as described in preapair manifest file section:
      python <cvat repository>/utils/dataset_manifest/create.py --output-dir <yourfolder> <yourfolder>
      
      1. When the manifest file is ready, upload it to aws s3 bucket:
      • For read and write permissions when you created the user, run:
      aws s3 cp <yourfolder>/manifest.jsonl <s3://bucket-name>
      
      • For read-only permissions, use the download through the browser, click upload, drag the manifest file to the page and click upload.

      Video tutorial: Add AWS S3 as Cloud Storage in CVAT

      Google Cloud Storage

      Create a bucket

      To create bucket, do the following:

      1. Create Google account and log into it.
      2. On the Google Cloud page, click Start Free, then enter the required data and accept the terms of service.

        Note: Google requires to add payment, you will need a bank card to accomplish step 2.

      3. Create a Bucket with the following parameters:
        • Name your bucket: Unique name.
        • Choose where to store your data: Set up a location nearest to you.
        • Choose a storage class for your data: Set a default class > Standard.
        • Choose how to control access to objects: Enforce public access prevention on this bucket > Uniform (default).
        • How to protect data: None

      GB

      You will be forwarded to the bucket.

      Upload data

      Note: manifest file is optional.

      You need to upload data for annotation and the manifest.jsonl file.

      1. Prepare data. For more information, see prepare the dataset.
      2. Open the bucket and from the top menu select Upload files or Upload folder (depends on how your files are organized).

      Access permissions

      To access Google Cloud Storage get a Project ID from cloud resource manager page

      And follow instructions below based on the preferable type of access.

      Authenticated access

      For authenticated access you need to create a service account and key file.

      To create a service account:

      1. On the Google Cloud platform, go to IAM & Admin > Service Accounts and click +Create Service Account.
      2. Enter your account name and click Create And Continue.
      3. Select a role, for example Basic > Viewer, and click Continue.
      4. (Optional) Give access rights to the service account.
      5. Click Done.

      To create a key:

      1. Go to IAM & Admin > Service Accounts > click on account name > Keys.
      2. Click Add key and select Create new key > JSON
      3. Click Create. The key file will be downloaded automatically.

      For more information about keys, see Learn more about creating keys.

      Anonymous access

      To configure anonymous access:

      1. Open the bucket and go to the Permissions tab.
      2. Сlick + Grant access to add new principals.
      3. In the New principals field specify allUsers, select roles: Cloud Storage Legacy > Storage Legacy Bucket Reader.
      4. Click Save.

      Now you can attach the Google Cloud Storage bucket to CVAT.

      Attach Google Cloud Storage

      To attach storage, do the following:

      1. Log into CVAT and in the separate tab open your bucket page.
      2. In the CVAT, on the top menu select Cloud storages > on the opened page click +.

      Fill in the following fields:

      CVAT Google Cloud Storage
      Display name Preferred display name for your storage.
      Description (Optional) Add description of storage.
      Provider From drop-down list select Google Cloud Storage.
      Bucket name Name of the bucket. You can find it on the storage browser page.
      Authentication type Depends on the bucket setup:
    • Authenticated access: Click on the Key file field and upload key file from computer.
      Advanced: For self-hosted solution, if the key file was not attached, then environment variable GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS that was specified for an environment will be used. For more information, see Authenticate to Cloud services using client libraries.
    • Anonymous access: for anonymous access. Public access to the bucket must be enabled.
    • Prefix (Optional) Used to filter data from the bucket. By setting a default prefix, you ensure that only data from a specific folder in the cloud is used in CVAT. This will affect which files you see when creating a task with cloud data.
      Project ID Project ID.
      For more information, see projects page and cloud resource manager page.
      Note: Project name does not match the project ID.
      Location (Optional) Choose a region from the list or add a new one. For more information, see Available locations.
      Manifests (Optional) Click + Add manifest and enter the name of the manifest file with an extension. For example: manifest.jsonl.

      After filling in all the fields, click Submit.

      Video tutorial: Add Google Cloud Storage as Cloud Storage in CVAT

      Microsoft Azure Blob Storage

      Create a bucket

      To create bucket, do the following:

      1. Create an Microsoft Azure account and log into it.

      2. Go to Azure portal, hover over the resource , and in the pop-up window click Create.

      3. Enter a name for the group and click Review + create, check the entered data and click Create.

      4. Go to the resource groups page, navigate to the group that you created and click Create resources.

      5. On the marketplace page, use search to find Storage account.

      6. Click on Storage account and on the next page click Create.

      7. On the Basics tab, fill in the following fields:

        • Storage account name: to access container from CVAT.
        • Select a region closest to you.
        • Select Performance > Standart.
        • Select Local-redundancy storage (LRS).
        • Click next: Advanced>.

      8. On the Advanced page, fill in the following fields:

        • (Optional) Disable Allow enabling public access on containers to prohibit anonymous access to the container.
        • Click Next > Networking.

      1. On the Networking tab, fill in the following fields:

        • If you want to change public access, enable Public access from all networks.

        • Click Next>Data protection.

          You do not need to change anything in other tabs until you need some specific setup.

      2. Click Review and wait for the data to load.

      3. Click Create. Deployment will start.

      4. After deployment is over, click Go to resource.

      Create a container

      To create container, do the following:

      1. Go to the containers section and on the top menu click +Container

      1. Enter the name of the container.
      2. (Optional) In the Public access level drop-down, select type of the access.
        Note: this field will inactive if you disabled Allow enabling public access on containers.
      3. Click Create.

      Upload data

      You need to upload data for annotation and the manifest.jsonl file.

      1. Prepare data. For more information, see prepare the dataset.
      2. Go to container and click Upload.
      3. Click Browse for files and select images.

        Note: If images are in folder, specify folder in the Advanced settings > Upload to folder.

      4. Click Upload.

      SAS token and connection string

      Use the SAS token or connection string to grant secure access to the container.

      To configure the credentials:

      1. Go to Home > Resourse groups > You resource name > Your storage account.
      2. On the left menu, click Shared access signature.
      3. Change the following fields:
        • Allowed services: Enable Blob . Disable all other fields.
        • Allowed resource types: Enable Container and Object. Disable all other fields.
        • Allowed permissions: Enable Read, Write, and List. Disable all other fields.
        • Start and expiry date: Set up start and expiry dates.
        • Allowed protocols: Select HTTPS and HTTP
        • Leave all other fields with default parameters.
      4. Click Generate SAS and connection string and copy SAS token or Connection string.

      Personal use

      For personal use, you can use the Access Key from your storage account in the CVAT SAS Token field.

      To get the Access Key:

      1. In the Azure Portal, go to the Security + networking > Access Keys
      2. Click Show and copy the key.

      Attach Azure Blob Storage

      To attach storage, do the following:

      1. Log into CVAT and in the separate tab open your bucket page.
      2. In the CVAT, on the top menu select Cloud storages > on the opened page click +.

      Fill in the following fields:

      CVAT Azure
      Display name Preferred display name for your storage.
      Description (Optional) Add description of storage.
      Provider From drop-down list select Azure Blob Container.
      Container name` Name of the cloud storage container.
      Authentication type Depends on the container setup.
      Account name and SAS token:
      • Account name enter storage account name.
      • SAS token is located in the Shared access signature section of your Storage account.
      . Anonymous access: for anonymous access Allow enabling public access on containers must be enabled.
      Prefix (Optional) Used to filter data from the bucket. By setting a default prefix, you ensure that only data from a specific folder in the cloud is used in CVAT. This will affect which files you see when creating a task with cloud data.
      Manifests (Optional) Click + Add manifest and enter the name of the manifest file with an extension. For example: manifest.jsonl.

      After filling in all the fields, click Submit.

      Video tutorial: Add Microsoft Azure Blob Storage as Cloud Storage in CVAT

      Prepare the dataset

      For example, the dataset is The Oxford-IIIT Pet Dataset:

      1. Download the archive with images.
      2. Unpack the archive into the prepared folder.
      3. Create a manifest. For more information, see Dataset manifest:
      python <cvat repository>/utils/dataset_manifest/create.py --output-dir <your_folder> <your_folder>
      

      2 - Advanced

      This section contains advanced documents for CVAT users

      2.1 - Projects page

      Creating and exporting projects in CVAT.

      Projects page

      On this page you can create a new project, create a project from a backup, and also see the created projects.

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

      Filter

      Applying filter disables the quick 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, see the filter section. Learn more about date and time selection.

      For clear all filters press Clear filters.

      Supported properties for projects list

      Properties Supported values Description
      Assignee username Assignee is the user who is working on the project, task or job.
      (is specified on task page)
      Owner username The user who owns the project, task, or job
      Last updated last modified date and time (or value range) The date can be entered in the dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm format
      or by selecting the date in the window that appears
      when you click on the input field
      ID number or range of job ID
      Name name On the tasks page - name of the task,
      on the project page - name of the project

      Create a project

      At CVAT, you can create a project containing tasks of the same type. All tasks related to the project will inherit a list of labels.

      To create a project, go to the projects section by clicking on the Projects item in the top menu. On the projects page, you can see a list of projects, use a search, or create a new project by clicking on the + button and select Create New Project.

      Note that the project will be created in the organization that you selected at the time of creation. Read more about organizations.

      You can change: the name of the project, the list of labels (which will be used for tasks created as parts of this project) and a skeleton if it’s necessary. In advanced configuration also you can specify: a link to the issue, source and target storages. Learn more about creating a label list, creating the skeleton and attach cloud storage.

      To save and open project click on Submit & Open button. Also you can click on Submit & Continue button for creating several projects in sequence

      Once created, the project will appear on the projects page. To open a project, just click on it.

      Here you can do the following:

      1. Change the project’s title.

      2. Open the Actions menu. Each button is responsible for a specific function in the Actions menu:

        • Export dataset/Import dataset - download/upload annotations or annotations and images in a specific format. More information is available in the export/import datasets section.
        • Backup project - make a backup of the project read more in the backup section.
        • Delete - remove the project and all related tasks.
      3. Change issue tracker or open issue tracker if it is specified.

      4. Change labels and skeleton. You can add new labels or add attributes for the existing labels in the Raw mode or the Constructor mode. You can also change the color for different labels. By clicking Setup skeleton you can create a skeleton for this project.

      5. Assigned to — is used to assign a project to a person. Start typing an assignee’s name and/or choose the right person out of the dropdown list.

      6. Tasks — is a list of all tasks for a particular project, with the ability to search, sort and filter for tasks in the project. Read more about search. Read more about sorting and filter It is possible to choose a subset for tasks in the project. You can use the available options (Train, Test, Validation) or set your own.

      2.2 - Organization

      Using organization in CVAT.

      Organization is a feature for teams of several users who work together on projects and share tasks.

      Create an Organization, invite your team members, and assign roles to make the team work better on shared tasks.

      See:

      Personal workspace

      The account’s default state is activated when no Organization is selected.

      If you do not select an Organization, the system links all new resources directly to your personal account, that inhibits resource sharing with others.

      When Personal workspace is selected, it will be marked with a tick in the menu.

      Create new organization

      To create an organization, do the following:

      1. Log in to the CVAT.

      2. On the top menu, click your Username > Organization > + Create.

      3. Fill in the following fields and click Submit.

      Field Description
      Short name A name of the organization that will be displayed in the CVAT menu.
      Full Name Optional. Full name of the organization.
      Description Optional. Description of organization.
      Email Optional. Your email.
      Phone number Optional. Your phone number.
      Location Optional. Organization address.

      Upon creation, the organization page will open automatically.

      For future access to your organization, navigate to Username > Organization

      Note, that if you’ve created more than 10 organizations, a Switch organization line will appear in the drop-down menu.

      Switching between organizations

      If you have more than one Organization, it is possible to switch between these Organizations at any given time.

      Follow these steps:

      1. In the top menu, select your Username > Organization.
      2. From the drop-down menu, under the Personal space section, choose the desired Organization.

      Note, that if you’ve created more than 10 organizations, a Switch organization line will appear in the drop-down menu.

      Click on it to see the Select organization dialog, and select organization from drop-down list.

      Organization page

      Organization page is a place, where you can edit the Organization information and manage Organization members.

      Note that in order to access the organization page, you must first activate the organization (see Switching between organizations). Without activation, the organization page will remain inaccessible.
      An organization is considered activated when it’s ticked in the drop-down menu and its name is visible in the top-right corner under the username.

      To go to the Organization page, do the following:

      1. On the top menu, click your Username > Organization.
      2. In the drop-down menu, select Organization.
      3. In the drop-down menu, click Settings.

      Invite members into organization: menu and roles

      Invite members form is available from Organization page.

      It has the following fields:

      Field Description
      Email Specifies the email address of the user who is being added to the Organization.
      Role drop-down list Defines the role of the user which sets the level of access within the Organization:
    • Worker: Has access only to the tasks, projects, and jobs assigned to them.
    • Supervisor: Can create and assign jobs, tasks, and projects to the Organization members.
    • Maintainer: Has the same capabilities as the Supervisor, but with additional visibility over all tasks and projects created by other members, complete access to Cloud Storages, and the ability to modify members and their roles.
    • Owner: role assigned to the creator of the organization by default. Has maximum capabilities and cannot be changed or assigned to the other user.
    • Invite more Button to add another user to the Organization.

      Members of Organization will appear on the Organization page:

      The member of the organization can leave the organization by going to Organization page > Leave organization.

      Inviting members to Organization

      To invite members to Organization do the following:

      1. Go to the Organization page, and click Invite members.

      2. Fill in the form (see below).

      3. Click Ok.

      4. The person being invited will receive an email with the link.

      5. Person must click the link and:

        1. If the invitee does not have the CVAT account, then set up an account.
        2. If the invitee has a CVAT account, then log in to the account.

      Invitations list

      User can see the list of active invitations.

      To see the list, Go to Username > Organization > Invitations.

      You will see the page with the list of invitations.

      You will also see pop-up notification the link to the page with invitations list.

      Resending and removing invitations

      The organization owner and maintainers can remove members, by clicking on the three dots, and selecting Remove invitation

      The organization owner can remove members, by clicking on the Bin icon.

      Delete organization

      You can remove an organization that you created.

      Note: Removing an organization will delete all related resources (annotations, jobs, tasks, projects, cloud storage, and so on).

      To remove an organization, do the following:

      1. Go to the Organization page.
      2. In the top-right corner click Actions > Remove organization.
      3. Enter the short name of the organization in the dialog field.
      4. Click Remove.

      2.3 - Search

      Overview of available search options.

      There are several options how to use the search.

      • Search within all fields (owner, assignee, task name, task status, task mode). To execute enter a search string in search field.
      • Search for specific fields. How to perform:
        • owner: admin - all tasks created by the user who has the substring “admin” in his name
        • assignee: employee - all tasks which are assigned to a user who has the substring “employee” in his name
        • name: training - all tasks with the substring “training” in their names
        • mode: annotation or mode: interpolation - all tasks with images or videos.
        • status: annotation or status: validation or status: completed - search by status
        • id: 5 - task with id = 5.
      • Multiple filters. Filters can be combined (except for the identifier) ​​using the keyword AND:
        • mode: interpolation AND owner: admin
        • mode: annotation and status: annotation

      The search is case insensitive.

      2.4 - Shape mode (advanced)

      Advanced operations available during annotation in shape mode.

      Basic operations in the mode were described in section shape mode (basics).

      Occluded Occlusion is an attribute used if an object is occluded by another object or isn’t fully visible on the frame. Use Q shortcut to set the property quickly.

      Example: the three cars on the figure below should be labeled as occluded.

      If a frame contains too many objects and it is difficult to annotate them due to many shapes placed mostly in the same place, it makes sense to lock them. Shapes for locked objects are transparent, and it is easy to annotate new objects. Besides, you can’t change previously annotated objects by accident. Shortcut: L.

      2.5 - Single Shape

      Guide to annotating tasks using Single Shape mode

      The CVAT Single Shape annotation mode accelerates the annotation process and enhances workflow efficiency for specific scenarios.

      By using this mode you can label objects with a chosen annotation shape and label when an image contains only a single object. By eliminating the necessity to select tools from the sidebar and facilitating quicker navigation between images without the reliance on hotkeys, this feature makes the annotation process significantly faster.

      See:

      Single Shape mode annotation interface

      A set of controls in the interface of the Single Shape annotation mode may vary depends on different settings.

      Images below displays the complete interface, featuring all available fields; as mentioned above, certain fields may be absent depending on the scenario.

      For instance, when annotating with rectangles, the Number of points field will not appear, and if annotating a single class, the Labels selector will be omitted.

      To access Single Shape mode, open the job, navigate to the top right corner, and from the drop-down menu, select Single Shape.

      Single Shape Annotation Mode Interface

      The interface will be different if the shape type was set to Any in the label Constructor:

      Single Shape Annotation Mode Interface

      The Single Shape annotation mode has the following fields:

      Feature Explanation
      Prompt for Shape and Label Displays the selected shape and label for the annotation task, for example: “Annotate cat on the image using rectangle”.
      Skip Button Enables moving to the next frame without annotating the current one, particularly useful when the frame does not have anything to be annotated.
      List of Hints Offers guidance on using the interface effectively, including:
      - Click Skip for frames without required annotations.
      - Hold the Alt button to avoid unintentional drawing (e.g. when you want only move the image).
      - Use the Ctrl+Z combination to undo the last action if needed.
      - Use the Esc button to completely reset the current drawing progress.
      Label selector Allows for the selection of different labels (cat, or dog in our example) for annotation within the interface.
      Label type selector A drop-down list to select type of the label (rectangle, ellipce, etc). Only visible when the type of the shape is Any.
      Options to Enable or Disable Provides configurable options to streamline the annotation process, such as:
      - Automatically go to the next frame.
      - Automatically save when finish.
      - Navigate only empty frames.
      - Predefined number of points - Specific to polyshape annotations, enabling this option auto-completes a shape once a predefined number of points is reached. Otherwise, pressing N is required to finalize the shape.
      Number of Points Applicable for polyshape annotations, indicating the number of points to use for image annotation.

      Annotating in Single Shape mode

      To annotate in Single Shape mode, follow these steps:

      1. Open the job and switch to Single Shape mode.
      2. Annotate the image based on the selected shape. For more information on shapes, see Annotation Tools.
      3. (Optional) If the image does not contain any objects to annotate, click Skip at the top of the right panel.
      4. Submit your work.

      Query parameters

      Also, we introduced additional query parameters, which you may append to the job link, to initialize the annotation process and automate workflow:

      Query Parameter Possible Values Explanation
      defaultWorkspace Workspace identifier (e.g., single_shape, tags, review, attributes) Specifies the workspace to be used initially, streamlining the setup for different annotation tasks.
      defaultLabel A string representation of a label (label name) Sets a default label for the annotation session, facilitating consistency across similar tasks.
      defaultPointsCount Integer - number of points for polyshapes Defines a preset number of points for polyshape annotations, optimizing the annotation process.

      You can combine these parameters to customize the workspace for an annotator, for example:

      /tasks/<tid>/jobs/<jid>?defaultWorkspace=single_shape&defaultLabel=dog&defaultPointsCount=10
      

      Will open the following job:

      Query Example

      Video tutorial

      For a better understanding of how Single Shape mode operates, we recommend watching the following tutorial.

      2.6 - CVAT User roles

      CVAT offers two distinct types of roles:

      • Global Roles: These are universal roles that apply to the entire system. Anyone who logs into the CVAT.ai platform is automatically assigned a global role. It sets the basic permissions that every registered user has across CVAT.ai, regardless of their specific tasks or responsibilities.
      • Organization Roles: These roles determine what a user can do within the Organization, allowing for more tailored access based on the user’s specific duties and responsibilities.

      Organization roles complement global roles by determining the visibility of different resources for example, tasks or jobs.

      Limits: Limits are applicable to all users of the CVAT.ai Cloud Platform using the Free plan and can be lifted upon choosing a subscription.

      All roles are predefined and cannot be modified through the user interface. However, within the self-hosted solution, roles can be adjusted using .rego files stored in cvat/apps/*/rules/. Rego is a declarative language employed for defining OPA (Open Policy Agent) policies, and its syntax is detailed in the OPA documentation.

      Note: Once you’ve made changes to the .rego files, you must rebuild and restart the Docker Compose for those changes to be applied. In this scenario, be sure to include the docker-compose.dev.yml compose configuration file when executing the Docker Compose command.

      See:

      Global roles in CVAT.ai

      Note: Global roles can be adjusted only on self-hosted solution.

      CVAT has implemented three Global roles, categorized as user Groups. These roles are:

      Role Description
      Administrator An administrator possesses unrestricted access to the CVAT instance and all activities within this instance. The administrator has visibility over all tasks and projects, with the ability to modify or manage each comprehensively. This role is exclusive to self-hosted instances, ensuring comprehensive oversight and control.
      User
      (default role)
      A User is a default role who is assigned to any user who is registered in CVAT*. Users can view and manage all tasks and projects within their registered accounts, but their activities are subject to specific limitations, see Free plan.

      * If a user, that did not have a CVAT account, has been invited to the organization by the organization owner or maintainer, it will be automatically assigned the Organization role and will be subject to the role’s limitations when operating within the Organization.
      Worker Workers are limited to specific functionalities and do not have the permissions to create tasks, assign roles, or perform other administrative actions. Their activities are primarily focused on viewing and interacting with the content within the boundaries of their designated roles (validation or annotation of the jobs).

      Organization roles in CVAT.ai

      Organization Roles are available only within the CVAT Organization.

      Organization Roles

      Organization roles are assigned when users are invited to the Organization.

      Organization Roles

      There are the following roles available in CVAT:

      Role Description
      Owner The Owner is the person who created the Organization. The Owner role is assigned to the creator of the organization by default. This role has maximum capabilities and cannot be changed or assigned to the other user.

      The Owner has no extra restrictions in the organization and is only limited by the chosen organization plan (see Free and Team plans).

      Owners can invite other users to the Organization and assign roles to the invited users so the team can collaborate.
      Maintainer The maintainer is the person who can invite users to organization, create and update tasks and jobs, and see all tasks within the organization. Maintainer has complete access to Cloud Storages, and the ability to modify members and their roles.
      Supervisor The supervisor is a manager role. Supervisor can create and assign jobs, tasks, and projects to the Organization members. Supervisor cannot invite new members and modify members roles.
      Worker Workers’ primary focus is actual annotation and reviews. They are limited to specific functionalities and has access only to the jobs assigned to them.

      Job Stage

      Job Stage can be assigned to any team member.

      Stages are not roles.

      Jobs can have an assigned user (with any role) and that Assignee will perform a Stage specific work which is to annotate, validate, or accept the job.

      Job stage

      Job Stage can be:

      Stage Description
      Annotation Provides access to annotation tools. Assignees will be able to see their assigned jobs and annotate them. By default, assignees with the Annotation stage cannot report annotation errors or issues.
      Validation Grants access to QA tools. Assignees will see their assigned jobs and can validate them while also reporting issues. By default, assignees with the Validation stage cannot correct errors or annotate datasets.
      Acceptance Does not grant any additional access or change the annotator’s interface. It just marks the job as done.

      Any Assignee can modify their assigned Stage specific functions via the annotation interface toolbar:

      Job stage change

      • Standard: switches interface to Annotation mode.
      • Review: switches interface to the Validation mode.

      2.7 - Track mode (advanced)

      Advanced operations available during annotation in track mode.

      Basic operations in the mode were described in section track mode (basics).

      Shapes that were created in the track mode, have extra navigation buttons.

      • These buttons help to jump to the previous/next keyframe.

      • The button helps to jump to the initial frame and to the last keyframe.

      You can use the Split function to split one track into two tracks:

      2.8 - 3D Object annotation (advanced)

      Overview of advanced operations available when annotating 3D objects.

      As well as 2D-task objects, 3D-task objects support the ability to change appearance, attributes, properties and have an action menu. Read more in objects sidebar section.

      Moving an object

      If you hover the cursor over a cuboid and press Shift+N, the cuboid will be cut, so you can paste it in other place (double-click to paste the cuboid).

      Copying

      As well as in 2D task you can copy and paste objects by Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, but unlike 2D tasks you have to place a copied object in a 3D space (double click to paste).

      Image of the projection window

      You can copy or save the projection-window image by left-clicking on it and selecting a “save image as” or “copy image”.

      2.9 - Attribute annotation mode (advanced)

      Advanced operations available in attribute annotation mode.

      Basic operations in the mode were described in section attribute annotation mode (basics).

      It is possible to handle lots of objects on the same frame in the mode.

      It is more convenient to annotate objects of the same type. In this case you can apply the appropriate filter. For example, the following filter will hide all objects except person: label=="Person".

      To navigate between objects (person in this case), use the following buttons switch between objects in the frame on the special panel:

      or shortcuts:

      • Tab — go to the next object
      • Shift+Tab — go to the previous object.

      In order to change the zoom level, go to settings (press F3) in the workspace tab and set the value Attribute annotation mode (AAM) zoom margin in px.

      2.10 - Annotation with rectangles

      To learn more about annotation using a rectangle, see the sections:

      Rotation rectangle

      To rotate the rectangle, pull on the rotation point. Rotation is done around the center of the rectangle. To rotate at a fixed angle (multiple of 15 degrees), hold shift. In the process of rotation, you can see the angle of rotation.

      Annotation with rectangle by 4 points

      It is an efficient method of bounding box annotation, proposed here. Before starting, you need to make sure that the drawing method by 4 points is selected.

      Press Shape or Track for entering drawing mode. Click on four extreme points: the top, bottom, left- and right-most physical points on the object. Drawing will be automatically completed right after clicking the fourth point. Press Esc to cancel editing.

      2.11 - Annotation with polygons

      Guide to creating and editing polygons.

      2.11.1 - Manual drawing

      It is used for semantic / instance segmentation.

      Before starting, you need to select Polygon on the controls sidebar and choose the correct Label.

      • Click Shape to enter drawing mode. There are two ways to draw a polygon: either create points by clicking or by dragging the mouse on the screen while holding Shift.
      Clicking points Holding Shift+Dragging
      • When Shift isn’t pressed, you can zoom in/out (when scrolling the mouse wheel) and move (when clicking the mouse wheel and moving the mouse), you can also delete the previous point by right-clicking on it.
      • You can use the Selected opacity slider in the Objects sidebar to change the opacity of the polygon. You can read more in the Objects sidebar section.
      • Press N again or click the Done button on the top panel for completing the shape.
      • After creating the polygon, you can move the points or delete them by right-clicking and selecting Delete point or clicking with pressed Alt key in the context menu.

      2.11.2 - Drawing using automatic borders

      You can use auto borders when drawing a polygon. Using automatic borders allows you to automatically trace the outline of polygons existing in the annotation.

      • To do this, go to settings -> workspace tab and enable Automatic Bordering or press Ctrl while drawing a polygon.

      • Start drawing / editing a polygon.

      • Points of other shapes will be highlighted, which means that the polygon can be attached to them.

      • Define the part of the polygon path that you want to repeat.

      • Click on the first point of the contour part.

      • Then click on any point located on part of the path. The selected point will be highlighted in purple.

      • Click on the last point and the outline to this point will be built automatically.

      Besides, you can set a fixed number of points in the Number of points field, then drawing will be stopped automatically. To enable dragging you should right-click inside the polygon and choose Switch pinned property.

      Below you can see results with opacity and black stroke:

      If you need to annotate small objects, increase Image Quality to 95 in Create task dialog for your convenience.

      2.11.3 - Edit polygon

      To edit a polygon you have to click on it while holding Shift, it will open the polygon editor.

      • In the editor you can create new points or delete part of a polygon by closing the line on another point.

      • When Intelligent polygon cropping option is activated in the settings, CVAT considers two criteria to decide which part of a polygon should be cut off during automatic editing.

        • The first criteria is a number of cut points.
        • The second criteria is a length of a cut curve.

        If both criteria recommend to cut the same part, algorithm works automatically, and if not, a user has to make the decision. If you want to choose manually which part of a polygon should be cut off, disable Intelligent polygon cropping in the settings. In this case after closing the polygon, you can select the part of the polygon you want to leave.

      • You can press Esc to cancel editing.

      2.11.4 - Track mode with polygons

      Polygons in the track mode allow you to mark moving objects more accurately other than using a rectangle (Tracking mode (basic); Tracking mode (advanced)).

      1. To create a polygon in the track mode, click the Track button.

      2. Create a polygon the same way as in the case of Annotation with polygons. Press N or click the Done button on the top panel to complete the polygon.

      3. Pay attention to the fact that the created polygon has a starting point and a direction, these elements are important for annotation of the following frames.

      4. After going a few frames forward press Shift+N, the old polygon will disappear and you can create a new polygon. The new starting point should match the starting point of the previously created polygon (in this example, the top of the left mirror). The direction must also match (in this example, clockwise). After creating the polygon, press N and the intermediate frames will be interpolated automatically.

      5. If you need to change the starting point, right-click on the desired point and select Set starting point. To change the direction, right-click on the desired point and select switch orientation.

      There is no need to redraw the polygon every time using Shift+N, instead you can simply move the points or edit a part of the polygon by pressing Shift+Click.

      2.11.5 - Creating masks

      Cutting holes in polygons

      Currently, CVAT does not support cutting transparent holes in polygons. However, it is poissble to generate holes in exported instance and class masks. To do this, one needs to define a background class in the task and draw holes with it as additional shapes above the shapes needed to have holes:

      The editor window:

      The editor

      Remember to use z-axis ordering for shapes by [-] and [+, =] keys.

      Exported masks:

      A class mask An instance mask

      Notice that it is currently impossible to have a single instance number for internal shapes (they will be merged into the largest one and then covered by “holes”).

      Creating masks

      There are several formats in CVAT that can be used to export masks:

      • Segmentation Mask (PASCAL VOC masks)
      • CamVid
      • MOTS
      • ICDAR
      • COCO (RLE-encoded instance masks, guide)
      • Datumaro

      An example of exported masks (in the Segmentation Mask format):

      A class mask An instance mask

      Important notices:

      • Both boxes and polygons are converted into masks
      • Grouped objects are considered as a single instance and exported as a single mask (label and attributes are taken from the largest object in the group)

      Class colors

      All the labels have associated colors, which are used in the generated masks. These colors can be changed in the task label properties:

      Label colors are also displayed in the annotation window on the right panel, where you can show or hide specific labels (only the presented labels are displayed):

      A background class can be:

      • A default class, which is implicitly-added, of black color (RGB 0, 0, 0)
      • background class with any color (has a priority, name is case-insensitive)
      • Any class of black color (RGB 0, 0, 0)

      To change background color in generated masks (default is black), change background class color to the desired one.

      2.12 - Annotation with polylines

      Guide to annotating tasks using polylines.

      It is used for road markup annotation etc.

      Before starting, you need to select the Polyline. You can set a fixed number of points in the Number of points field, then drawing will be stopped automatically.

      Click Shape to enter drawing mode. There are two ways to draw a polyline — you either create points by clicking or by dragging a mouse on the screen while holding Shift. When Shift isn’t pressed, you can zoom in/out (when scrolling the mouse wheel) and move (when clicking the mouse wheel and moving the mouse), you can delete previous points by right-clicking on it. Press N again or click the Done button on the top panel to complete the shape. You can delete a point by clicking on it with pressed Ctrl or right-clicking on a point and selecting Delete point. Click with pressed Shift will open a polyline editor. There you can create new points(by clicking or dragging) or delete part of a polygon closing the red line on another point. Press Esc to cancel editing.

      2.13 - Annotation with points

      Guide to annotating tasks using single points or shapes containing multiple points.

      2.13.1 - Points in shape mode

      It is used for face, landmarks annotation etc.

      Before you start you need to select the Points. If necessary you can set a fixed number of points in the Number of points field, then drawing will be stopped automatically.

      Click Shape to entering the drawing mode. Now you can start annotation of the necessary area. Points are automatically grouped — all points will be considered linked between each start and finish. Press N again or click the Done button on the top panel to finish marking the area. You can delete a point by clicking with pressed Ctrl or right-clicking on a point and selecting Delete point. Clicking with pressed Shift will open the points shape editor. There you can add new points into an existing shape. You can zoom in/out (when scrolling the mouse wheel) and move (when clicking the mouse wheel and moving the mouse) while drawing. You can drag an object after it has been drawn and change the position of individual points after finishing an object.

      2.13.2 - Linear interpolation with one point

      You can use linear interpolation for points to annotate a moving object:

      1. Before you start, select the Points.

      2. Linear interpolation works only with one point, so you need to set Number of points to 1.

      3. After that select the Track.

      4. Click Track to enter the drawing mode left-click to create a point and after that shape will be automatically completed.

      5. Move forward a few frames and move the point to the desired position, this way you will create a keyframe and intermediate frames will be drawn automatically. You can work with this object as with an interpolated track: you can hide it using the Outside, move around keyframes, etc.

      6. This way you’ll get linear interpolation using the Points.

      2.14 - Annotation with ellipses

      Guide to annotating tasks using ellipses.

      It is used for road sign annotation etc.

      First of all you need to select the ellipse on the controls sidebar.

      Choose a Label and click Shape or Track to start drawing. An ellipse can be created the same way as a rectangle, you need to specify two opposite points, and the ellipse will be inscribed in an imaginary rectangle. Press N or click the Done button on the top panel to complete the shape.

      You can rotate ellipses using a rotation point in the same way as rectangles.

      Annotation with ellipses video tutorial

      2.15 - Annotation with cuboids

      Guide to creating and editing cuboids.

      It is used to annotate 3 dimensional objects such as cars, boxes, etc… Currently the feature supports one point perspective and has the constraint where the vertical edges are exactly parallel to the sides.

      2.15.1 - Creating the cuboid

      Before you start, you have to make sure that Cuboid is selected and choose a drawing method ”from rectangle” or “by 4 points”.

      Drawing cuboid by 4 points

      Choose a drawing method “by 4 points” and click Shape to enter the drawing mode. There are many ways to draw a cuboid. You can draw the cuboid by placing 4 points, after that the drawing will be completed automatically. The first 3 points determine the plane of the cuboid while the last point determines the depth of that plane. For the first 3 points, it is recommended to only draw the 2 closest side faces, as well as the top and bottom face.

      A few examples:

      Drawing cuboid from rectangle

      Choose a drawing method “from rectangle” and click Shape to enter the drawing mode. When you draw using the rectangle method, you must select the frontal plane of the object using the bounding box. The depth and perspective of the resulting cuboid can be edited.

      Example:

      2.15.2 - Editing the cuboid

      The cuboid can be edited in multiple ways: by dragging points, by dragging certain faces or by dragging planes. First notice that there is a face that is painted with gray lines only, let us call it the front face.

      You can move the cuboid by simply dragging the shape behind the front face. The cuboid can be extended by dragging on the point in the middle of the edges. The cuboid can also be extended up and down by dragging the point at the vertices.

      To draw with perspective effects it should be assumed that the front face is the closest to the camera. To begin simply drag the points on the vertices that are not on the gray/front face while holding Shift. The cuboid can then be edited as usual.

      If you wish to reset perspective effects, you may right click on the cuboid, and select Reset perspective to return to a regular cuboid.

      The location of the gray face can be swapped with the adjacent visible side face. You can do it by right clicking on the cuboid and selecting Switch perspective orientation. Note that this will also reset the perspective effects.

      Certain faces of the cuboid can also be edited, these faces are: the left, right and dorsal faces, relative to the gray face. Simply drag the faces to move them independently from the rest of the cuboid.

      You can also use cuboids in track mode, similar to rectangles in track mode (basics and advanced) or Track mode with polygons

      2.16 - Annotation with skeletons

      Guide to annotating tasks using Skeletons

      In this guide, we delve into the efficient process of annotating complex structures through the implementation of Skeleton annotations.

      Skeletons serve as annotation templates for annotating complex objects with a consistent structure, such as human pose estimation or facial landmarks.

      A Skeleton is composed of numerous points (also referred to as elements), which may be connected by edges. Each point functions as an individual object, possessing unique attributes and properties like color, occlusion, and visibility.

      Skeletons can be exported in two formats: CVAT for image and COCO Keypoints.

      Note: that skeletons’ labels cannot be imported in a label-less project by importing a dataset. You need to define the labels manually before the import.

      See:

      Adding Skeleton manually

      To start annotating using skeletons, you need to set up a Skeleton task in Configurator:

      To open Configurator, when creating a task, click on the Setup skeleton button if you want to set up the skeleton manually, or From model if you want to add skeleton labels from a model.

      Skeleton Configurator

      The skeleton Configurator is a tool to build skeletons for annotation. It has the following fields:

      Number Name Description
      1 Upload background image (Optional) Use it to upload a background image, to draw a skeleton on top of it.
      2 Add point Use it to add Skeleton points to the Drawing area (8).
      3 Click and drag Use it to move points across the Drawing area (8).
      4 Add edge Use it to add edge on the Drawing area (8) to connect the points (2).
      5 Remove point Use it to remove points. Click on Remove point and then on any point (2) on the Drawing area (8) to delete the point.
      6 Download skeleton Use it to download created skeleton in .SVG format.
      7 Upload skeleton Use it to upload skeleton in .SVG format.
      8 Drawing area Use it as a canvas to draw a skeleton.

      Configuring Skeleton points

      You can name labels, set attributes, and change the color of each point of the skeleton.

      To do this, right-click on the skeleton point and select Configure:

      In the opened menu, you can change the point setting. It is similar to adding labels and attributes of the regular task:

      A Skeleton point can only exist within its parent Skeleton.

      Note that you cannot change the skeleton configuration for an existing task/project.

      You can copy/insert skeleton configuration from the Raw tab of the label configurator.

      Adding Skeleton labels manually

      To create the Skeleton task, do the following:

      1. Open Configurator.
      2. (Optional) Upload background image.
      3. In the Label name field, enter the name of the label.
      4. (Optional) Add attribute
        Note: you can add attributes exclusively to each point, for more information, see Configuring Skeleton points
      5. Use Add point to add points to the Drawing area.
      6. Use Add edge to add edges between points.
      7. Upload files.
      8. Click:
        • Submit & Open to create and open the task.
        • Submit & Continue to submit the configuration and start creating a new task.

      Adding Skeleton labels from the model

      To add points from the model, and annotate do the following:

      1. Open Basic configurator.

      2. On the Constructor tab, click From model.

      3. From the Select a model to pick labels select the Human pose estimation model or others if available.

      4. Click on the model’s labels, you want to use.
        Selected labels will become gray.

      5. (Optional) If you want to adjust labels, within the label, click the Update attributes icon.
        The Skeleton configurator will open, where you can configure the skeleton.
        Note: Labels cannot be adjusted after the task/project is created.

      6. Click Done. The labels, that you selected, will appear in the labels window.

      7. Upload data.

      8. Click:

        • Submit & Open to create and open the task.
        • Submit & Continue to submit the configuration and start creating a new task.

      Annotation with Skeletons

      To annotate with Skeleton, do the following

      1. Open job.

      2. On the tools panel select Draw new skeleton.

      3. Select Track or Shape to annotate. without tracking.

      4. Draw a skeleton on the image.

      Automatic annotation with Skeletons

      To automatically annotate with Skeleton, do the following

      1. Open the job and on the tools panel select AI Tools > Detectors

      2. From the drop-down list select the model. You will see a list of points to match and the name of the skeleton on the top of the list.

      3. (Optional) By clicking on the Bin icon, you can remove any mapped item:

        • A skeleton together with all points.
        • Certain points from two mapped skeletons.
      4. Click Annotate.

      Editing skeletons on the canvas

      A drawn skeleton is encompassed within a bounding box, it allows you to manipulate the skeleton as a regular bounding box, enabling actions such as dragging, resizing, or rotating:

      Upon repositioning a point, the bounding box adjusts automatically, without affecting other points:

      Additionally, Shortcuts are applicable to both the skeleton as a whole and its elements:

      • To use a shortcut to the entire skeleton, hover over the bounding box and push the shortcut keyboard key. This action is applicable for shortcuts like the lock, occluded, pinned, keyframe, and outside for skeleton tracks.
      • To use a shortcut to a specific skeleton point, hover over the point and push the shortcut keyboard key. The same list of shortcuts is available, with the addition of outside, which is also applicable to individual skeleton shape elements.

      Editing skeletons on the sidebar

      In CVAT, the sidebar offers an alternative method for setting up skeleton properties and attributes.

      This approach is similar to that used for other object types supported by CVAT, but with a few specific alterations:

      An additional collapsible section is provided for users to view a comprehensive list of skeleton parts.

      Skeleton points can have properties like Outside, Occluded, and Hidden.

      Both Outside and Hidden make a skeleton point invisible.

      • Outside property is part of annotations. Use it when part of the object is out of frame borders.

      • Hidden makes a point hidden only for the annotator’s convenience, this property will not be saved between different sessions.

      • Occluded keeps the point visible on the frame and usually means that the point is still on a frame, just hidden behind another object.

      2.17 - Annotation with brush tool

      Guide to annotating tasks using brush tools.

      With a brush tool, you can create masks for disjoint objects, that have multiple parts, such as a house hiding behind trees, a car behind a pedestrian, or a pillar behind a traffic sign. The brush tool has several modes, for example: erase pixels, change brush shapes, and polygon-to-mask mode.

      Use brush tool for Semantic (Panoptic) and Instance Image Segmentation tasks.
      For more information about segmentation masks in CVAT, see Creating masks.

      See:

      Brush tool menu

      The brush tool menu appears on the top of the screen after you click Shape:

      BT Menu

      It has the following elements:

      Element Description
      Tick icon Save mask saves the created mask. The saved mask will appear on the object sidebar
      Save mask and continue Save mask and continue adds a new mask to the object sidebar and allows you to draw a new one immediately.
      Brush Brush adds new mask/ new regions to the previously added mask).
      Eraser Eraser removes part of the mask.
      Add poly Polygon selection tool. Selection will become a mask.
      Remove poly Remove polygon selection subtracts part of the polygon selection.
      Brush size Brush size in pixels.
      Note: Visible only when Brush or Eraser are selected.
      Brush shape Brush shape with two options: circle and square.
      Note: Visible only when Brush or Eraser are selected.
      Pixel remove Remove underlying pixels. When you are drawing or editing a mask with this tool,
      pixels on other masks that are located at the same positions as the pixels of the
      current mask are deleted.
      Label Label that will be assigned to the newly created mask
      Move Move. Click and hold to move the menu bar to the other place on the screen

      Annotation with brush

      To annotate with brush, do the following:

      1. From the controls sidebar, select Brush Brush icon.

      2. In the Draw new mask menu, select label for your mask, and click Shape.
        The BrushBrush tool will be selected by default.

        BT context menu

      3. With the brush, draw a mask on the object you want to label.
        To erase selection, use Eraser Eraser

        Brushing

      4. After you applied the mask, on the top menu bar click Save mask Tick icon
        to finish the process (or N on the keyboard).

      5. Added object will appear on the objects sidebar.

      To add the next object, repeat steps 1 to 5. All added objects will be visible on the image and the objects sidebar.

      To save the job with all added objects, on the top menu, click Save Save.

      Annotation with polygon-to-mask

      To annotate with polygon-to-mask, do the following:

      1. From the controls sidebar, select Brush Brush icon.

      2. In the Draw new mask menu, select label for your mask, and click Shape.

        BT context menu

      3. In the brush tool menu, select Polygon Add poly.

      4. With the PolygonAdd poly tool, draw a mask for the object you want to label.
        To correct selection, use Remove polygon selection Remove poly.

      5. Use Save mask Tick icon (or N on the keyboard)
        to switch between add/remove polygon tools:

        Brushing

      6. After you added the polygon selection, on the top menu bar click Save mask Tick icon
        to finish the process (or N on the keyboard).

      7. Click Save mask Tick icon again (or N on the keyboard).
        The added object will appear on the objects sidebar.

      To add the next object, repeat steps 1 to 5.

      All added objects will be visible on the image and the objects sidebar.

      To save the job with all added objects, on the top menu, click Save Save.

      Remove underlying pixels

      Use Remove underlying pixels tool when you want to add a mask and simultaneously delete the pixels of
      other masks that are located at the same positions. It is a highly useful feature to avoid meticulous drawing edges twice between two different objects.

      Remove pixel

      AI Tools

      You can convert AI tool masks to polygons. To do this, use the following AI tool menu:

      Save

      1. Go to the Detectors tab.
      2. Switch toggle Masks to polygons to the right.
      3. Add source and destination labels from the drop-down lists.
      4. Click Annotate.

      Import and export

      For export, see Export dataset

      Import follows the general import dataset procedure, with the additional option of converting masks to polygons.

      Note: This option is available for formats that work with masks only.

      To use it, when uploading the dataset, switch the Convert masks to polygon toggle to the right:

      Remove pixel

      2.18 - Annotation with tags

      It is used to annotate frames, tags are not displayed in the workspace. Before you start, open the drop-down list in the top panel and select Tag annotation.

      The objects sidebar will be replaced with a special panel for working with tags. Here you can select a label for a tag and add it by clicking on the Plus button. You can also customize hotkeys for each label.

      If you need to use only one label for one frame, then enable the Automatically go to the next frame checkbox, then after you add the tag the frame will automatically switch to the next.

      Tags will be shown in the top left corner of the canvas. You can show/hide them in the settings.

      2.19 - Models

      To deploy the models, you will need to install the necessary components using Semi-automatic and Automatic Annotation guide. To learn how to deploy the model, read Serverless tutorial.

      The Models page contains a list of deep learning (DL) models deployed for semi-automatic and automatic annotation. To open the Models page, click the Models button on the navigation bar. The list of models is presented in the form of a table. The parameters indicated for each model are the following:

      • Framework the model is based on
      • model Name
      • model Type:
      • Description - brief description of the model
      • Labels - list of the supported labels (only for the models of the detectors type)

      2.20 - CVAT Analytics and QA in Cloud

      Analytics and quality assessment in CVAT Cloud

      2.20.1 - Automated QA, Review & Honeypot

      Guidelines for assessing annotation quality in CVAT automatically

      In CVAT, it’s possible to evaluate the quality of annotation through the creation of a Ground truth job, referred to as a Honeypot. To estimate the task quality, CVAT compares all other jobs in the task against the established Ground truth job, and calculates annotation quality based on this comparison.

      Note that quality estimation only supports 2d tasks. It supports all the annotation types except 2d cuboids.

      Note that tracks are considered separate shapes and compared on a per-frame basis with other tracks and shapes.

      See:

      Ground truth job

      A Ground truth job is a way to tell CVAT where to store and get the “correct” annotations for task quality estimation.

      To estimate task quality, you need to create a Ground truth job in the task, and annotate it. You don’t need to annotate the whole dataset twice, the annotation quality of a small part of the data shows the quality of annotation for the whole dataset.

      For the quality assurance to function correctly, the Ground truth job must have a small portion of the task frames and the frames must be chosen randomly. Depending on the dataset size and task complexity, 5-15% of the data is typically good enough for quality estimation, while keeping extra annotation overhead acceptable.

      For example, in a typical task with 2000 frames, selecting just 5%, which is 100 extra frames to annotate, is enough to estimate the annotation quality. If the task contains only 30 frames, it’s advisable to select 8-10 frames, which is about 30%.

      It is more than 15% but in the case of smaller datasets, we need more samples to estimate quality reliably.

      To create a Ground truth job, do the following:

      1. Create a task, and open the task page.

      2. Click +.

        Create job

      3. In the Add new job window, fill in the following fields:

        Add new job

        • Job type: Use the default parameter Ground truth.
        • Frame selection method: Use the default parameter Random.
        • Quantity %: Set the desired percentage of frames for the Ground truth job.
          Note that when you use Quantity %, the Frames field will be autofilled.
        • Frame count: Set the desired number of frames for the “ground truth” job.
          Note that when you use Frames, the Quantity % field will be will be autofilled.
        • Seed: (Optional) If you need to make the random selection reproducible, specify this number. It can be any integer number, the same value will yield the same random selection (given that the frame number is unchanged).
          Note that if you want to use a custom frame sequence, you can do this using the server API instead, see Jobs API #create.
      4. Click Submit.

      5. Annotate frames, save your work.

      6. Change the status of the job to Completed.

      7. Change Stage to Accepted.

      The Ground truth job will appear in the jobs list.

      Add new job

      Managing Ground Truth jobs: Import, Export, and Deletion

      Annotations from Ground truth jobs are not included in the dataset export, they also cannot be imported during task annotations import or with automatic annotation for the task.

      Import, export, and delete options are available from the job’s menu.

      Add new job

      Import

      If you want to import annotations into the Ground truth job, do the following.

      1. Open the task, and find the Ground truth job in the jobs list.
      2. Click on three dots to open the menu.
      3. From the menu, select Import annotations.
      4. Select import format, and select file.
      5. Click OK.

      Note that if there are imported annotations for the frames that exist in the task, but are not included in the Ground truth job, they will be ignored. This way, you don’t need to worry about “cleaning up” your Ground truth annotations for the whole dataset before importing them. Importing annotations for the frames that are not known in the task still raises errors.

      Export

      To export annotations from the Ground truth job, do the following.

      1. Open the task, and find a job in the jobs list.
      2. Click on three dots to open the menu.
      3. From the menu, select Export annotations.

      Delete

      To delete the Ground truth job, do the following.

      1. Open the task, and find the Ground truth job in the jobs list.
      2. Click on three dots to open the menu.
      3. From the menu, select Delete.

      Assessing data quality with Ground truth jobs

      Once you’ve established the Ground truth job, proceed to annotate the dataset.

      CVAT will begin the quality comparison between the annotated task and the Ground truth job in this task once it is finished (on the acceptance stage and in the completed state).

      Note that the process of quality calculation may take up to several hours, depending on the amount of data and labeled objects, and is not updated immediately after task updates.

      To view results go to the Task > Actions > View analytics> Performance tab.

      Add new job

      Quality data

      The Analytics page has the following fields:

      Field Description
      Mean annotation quality Displays the average quality of annotations, which includes: the count of accurate annotations, total task annotations, ground truth annotations, accuracy rate, precision rate, and recall rate.
      GT Conflicts Conflicts identified during quality assessment, including extra or missing annotations. Mouse over the ? icon for a detailed conflict report on your dataset.
      Issues Number of opened issues. If no issues were reported, will show 0.
      Quality report Quality report in JSON format.
      Ground truth job data “Information about ground truth job, including date, time, and number of issues.
      List of jobs List of all the jobs in the task

      Annotation quality settings

      If you need to tweak some aspects of comparisons, you can do this from the Annotation Quality Settings menu.

      You can configure what overlap should be considered low or how annotations must be compared.

      The updated settings will take effect on the next quality update.

      To open Annotation Quality Settings, find Quality report and on the right side of it, click on three dots.

      The following window will open. Hover over the ? marks to understand what each field represents.

      Add new job

      Annotation quality settings have the following parameters:

      Field Description
      Min overlap threshold Min overlap threshold(IoU) is used for the distinction between matched / unmatched shapes.
      Low overlap threshold Low overlap threshold is used for the distinction between strong/weak (low overlap) matches.
      OKS Sigma IoU threshold for points. The percent of the box area, used as the radius of the circle around the GT point, where the checked point is expected to be.
      Relative thickness (frame side %) Thickness of polylines, relative to the (image area) ^ 0.5. The distance to the boundary around the GT line inside of which the checked line points should be.
      Check orientation Indicates that polylines have direction.
      Min similarity gain (%) The minimal gain in the GT IoU between the given and reversed line directions to consider the line inverted. Only useful with the Check orientation parameter.
      Compare groups Enables or disables annotation group checks.
      Min group match threshold Minimal IoU for groups to be considered matching, used when the Compare groups are enabled.
      Check object visibility Check for partially-covered annotations. Masks and polygons will be compared to each other.
      Min visibility threshold Minimal visible area percent of the spatial annotations (polygons, masks). For reporting covered annotations, useful with the Check object visibility option.
      Match only visible parts Use only the visible part of the masks and polygons in comparisons.

      GT conflicts in the CVAT interface

      To see GT Conflicts in the CVAT interface, go to Review > Issues > Show ground truth annotations and conflicts.

      GT conflict

      The ground truth (GT) annotation is depicted as a dotted-line box with an associated label.

      Upon hovering over an issue on the right-side panel with your mouse, the corresponding GT Annotation gets highlighted.

      Use arrows in the Issue toolbar to move between GT conflicts.

      To create an issue related to the conflict, right-click on the bounding box and from the menu select the type of issue you want to create.

      GT conflict

      Annotation quality & Honeypot video tutorial

      This video demonstrates the process:

      2.20.2 - Manual QA and Review

      Guidelines on evaluating annotation quality in CVAT manually

      In the demanding process of annotation, ensuring accuracy is paramount.

      CVAT introduces a specialized Review mode, designed to streamline the validation of annotations by pinpointing errors or discrepancies in annotation.

      Note: The Review mode is not applicable for 3D tasks.

      See:

      Review and report issues: review only mode

      Review mode is a user interface (UI) setting where a specialized Issue tool is available. This tool allows you to identify and describe issues with objects or areas within the frame.

      Note: While in review mode, all other tools will be hidden.

      Review mode screen looks like the following:

      Review mode screen

      Assigning reviewer

      Note: Reviewers can be assigned by project or task owner, assignee, and maintainer.

      To assign a reviewer to the job, do the following:

      1. Log in to the Owner or Maintainer account.

      2. (Optional) If the person you wish to assign as a reviewer is not a member of Organization, you need to Invite this person to the Organization.

      3. Click on the Assignee field and select the reviewer.

      4. From the Stage drop-down list, select Validation.

        Assigning reviewer

      Reporting issues

      To report an issue, do the following:

      1. Log in to the reviewer’s account.

      2. On the Controls sidebar, click Open and issue ().

      3. Click on the area of the frame where the issue is occurring, and the Issue report popup will appear.

        Issue report window

      4. In the text field of the Issue report popup, enter the issue description.

      5. Click Submit.

      Quick issue

      The Quick issue function streamlines the review process. It allows reviewers to efficiently select from a list of previously created issues or add a new one, facilitating a faster and more organized review.

      Quick issue

      To create a Quick issue do the following:

      1. Right-click on the area of the frame where the issue is occurring.

      2. From the popup menu select one of the following:

        • Open an issue…: to create new issue.
        • Quick issue: incorrect position: to report incorrect position of the label.
        • Quick issue: incorrect attribute: to report incorrect attribute of the label.
        • Quick issue…: to open the list of issues that were reported by you before.

      Assigning corrector

      Note: Only project owners and maintainers can assign reviewers.

      To assign a corrector to the job, do the following:

      1. Log in to the Owner or Maintainer account.

      2. (Optional) If the person you wish to assign as a corrector is not a member of Organization, you need to Invite this person to the Organization.

      3. Click on the Assignee field and select the reviewer.

      4. From the Stage drop-down list, select Annotation.

        Assigning corrector

      Correcting reported issues

      To correct the reported issue, do the following:

      1. Log in to the corrector account.

      2. Go to the reviewed job and open it.

      3. Click on the issue report, to see details of what needs to be corrected.

        Issue report label

      4. Correct annotation.

      5. Add a comment to the issue report and click Resolve.

        Issue report

      6. After all issues are fixed save work, go to the Menu select the Change the job state and change state to Complete.

        Change job status

      Review and report issues: review and correct mode

      The person, assigned as assigned as reviewer can switch to correction mode and correct all annotation issues.

      To correct annotation issues as a reviewer, do the following:

      1. Log in to the reviewer account.

      2. Go to the assigned job and open it.

      3. In the top right corner, from the drop-down list, select Standard.

        Change job status

      Issues navigation and interface

      This section describes navigation, interface and comments section.

      Issues tab

      The created issue will appear on the Objects sidebar, in the Issues tab.

      It has has the following elements:

      Element Description
      Arrows You can switch between issues by clicking on arrows
      Hide all issues Click on the eye icon to hide all issues
      Hide resolved issues Click on the check mark to hide only resolved issues
      Ground truth Show ground truth annotations and objects

      Issues workspace

      In the workspace, you can click on the issue, and add a comment on the issue, remove (Remove) it, or resolve (Resolve) it.

      To reopen the resolved issue, click Reopen.

      You can easily access multiple issues created in one location by hovering over an issue and scrolling the mouse wheel.

      Issues comments

      You can add as many comments as needed to the issue.

      In the Objects toolbar, only the first and last comments will be displayed

      You can copy and paste comments text.

      Manual QA complete video tutorial

      This video demonstrates the process:

      2.20.3 - CVAT Team Performance & Monitoring

      How to monitor team activity and performance in CVAT

      In CVAT Cloud, you can track a variety of metrics reflecting the team’s productivity and the pace of annotation with the Performance feature.

      See:

      Performance dashboard

      To open the Performance dashboard, do the following:

      1. In the top menu click on Projects/ Tasks/ Jobs.
      2. Select an item from the list, and click on three dots (Open menu).
      3. From the menu, select View analytics > Performance tab.

      Open menu

      The following dashboard will open:

      Open menu

      The Performance dashboard has the following elements:

      Element Description
      Analytics for Object/ Task/ Job number.
      Created Time when the dashboard was updated last time.
      Objects Graph, showing the number of annotated, updated, and deleted objects by day.
      Annotation speed (objects per hour) Number of objects annotated per hour.
      Time A drop-down list with various periods for the graph. Currently affects only the histogram data.
      Annotation time (hours) Shows for how long the Project/Task/Job is in In progress state.
      Total objects count Shows the total objects count in the task. Interpolated objects are counted.
      Total annotation speed (objects per hour) Shows the annotation speed in the Project/Task/Job. Interpolated objects are counted.

      You can rearrange elements of the dashboard by dragging and dropping each of them.

      Performance video tutorial

      This video demonstrates the process:

      2.21 - OpenCV and AI Tools

      Overview of semi-automatic and automatic annotation tools available in CVAT.

      Label and annotate your data in semi-automatic and automatic mode with the help of AI and OpenCV tools.

      While interpolation is good for annotation of the videos made by the security cameras, AI and OpenCV tools are good for both: videos where the camera is stable and videos, where it moves together with the object, or movements of the object are chaotic.

      See:

      Interactors

      Interactors are a part of AI and OpenCV tools.

      Use interactors to label objects in images by creating a polygon semi-automatically.

      When creating a polygon, you can use positive points or negative points (for some models):

      • Positive points define the area in which the object is located.
      • Negative points define the area in which the object is not located.

      AI tools: annotate with interactors

      To annotate with interactors, do the following:

      1. Click Magic wand Magic wand, and go to the Interactors tab.
      2. From the Label drop-down, select a label for the polygon.
      3. From the Interactor drop-down, select a model (see Interactors models).
        Click the Question mark to see information about each model:
      4. (Optional) If the model returns masks, and you need to convert masks to polygons, use the Convert masks to polygons toggle.
      5. Click Interact.
      6. Use the left click to add positive points and the right click to add negative points.
        Number of points you can add depends on the model.
      7. On the top menu, click Done (or Shift+N, N).

      AI tools: add extra points

      Note: More points improve outline accuracy, but make shape editing harder. Fewer points make shape editing easier, but reduce outline accuracy.

      Each model has a minimum required number of points for annotation. Once the required number of points is reached, the request is automatically sent to the server. The server processes the request and adds a polygon to the frame.

      For a more accurate outline, postpone request to finish adding extra points first:

      1. Hold down the Ctrl key.
        On the top panel, the Block button will turn blue.
      2. Add points to the image.
      3. Release the Ctrl key, when ready.

      In case you used Mask to polygon when the object is finished, you can edit it like a polygon.

      You can change the number of points in the polygon with the slider:

      AI tools: delete points


      To delete a point, do the following:

      1. With the cursor, hover over the point you want to delete.
      2. If the point can be deleted, it will enlarge and the cursor will turn into a cross.
      3. Left-click on the point.

      OpenCV: intelligent scissors

      To use Intelligent scissors, do the following:

      1. On the menu toolbar, click OpenCVOpenCV and wait for the library to load.


      2. Go to the Drawing tab, select the label, and click on the Intelligent scissors button.

      3. Add the first point on the boundary of the allocated object.
        You will see a line repeating the outline of the object.

      4. Add the second point, so that the previous point is within the restrictive threshold.
        After that a line repeating the object boundary will be automatically created between the points.

      5. To finish placing points, on the top menu click Done (or N on the keyboard).

      As a result, a polygon will be created.

      You can change the number of points in the polygon with the slider:

      To increase or lower the action threshold, hold Ctrl and scroll the mouse wheel.

      During the drawing process, you can remove the last point by clicking on it with the left mouse button.

      Settings

      Interactors models

      Model Tool Description Example
      Segment Anything Model (SAM) AI Tools The Segment Anything Model (SAM) produces high
      quality object masks, and it can be used to generate
      masks for all objects in an image. It has been trained
      on a dataset of 11 million images and
      1.1 billion masks, and has strong zero-shot performance on a variety of segmentation tasks.

      For more information, see:
    • GitHub: Segment Anything
    • Site: Segment Anything
    • Paper: Segment Anything
    • Deep extreme
      cut (DEXTR)
      AI Tool This is an optimized version of the original model,
      introduced at the end of 2017. It uses the
      information about extreme points of an object
      to get its mask. The mask is then converted to a polygon.
      For now this is the fastest interactor on the CPU.

      For more information, see:
    • GitHub: DEXTR-PyTorch
    • Site: DEXTR-PyTorch
    • Paper: DEXTR-PyTorch
    • Feature backpropagating
      refinement
      scheme (f-BRS)
      AI Tool The model allows to get a mask for an
      object using positive points (should be
      left-clicked on the foreground),
      and negative points (should be right-clicked
      on the background, if necessary).
      It is recommended to run the model on GPU,
      if possible.

      For more information, see:
    • GitHub: f-BRS
    • Paper: f-BRS
    • High Resolution
      Net (HRNet)
      AI Tool The model allows to get a mask for
      an object using positive points (should
      be left-clicked on the foreground),
      and negative points (should be
      right-clicked on the background,
      if necessary).
      It is recommended to run the model on GPU,
      if possible.

      For more information, see:
    • GitHub: HRNet
    • Paper: HRNet
    • Inside-Outside-Guidance
      (IOG)
      AI Tool The model uses a bounding box and
      inside/outside points to create a mask.
      First of all, you need to create a bounding
      box, wrapping the object.
      Then you need to use positive
      and negative points to say the
      model where is
      a foreground, and where is a background.
      Negative points are optional.

      For more information, see:
    • GitHub: IOG
    • Paper: IOG
    • Intelligent scissors OpenCV Intelligent scissors is a CV method of creating
      a polygon by placing points with the automatic
      drawing of a line between them. The distance
      between the adjacent points is limited by
      the threshold of action, displayed as a
      red square that is tied to the cursor.

      For more information, see:
    • Site: Intelligent Scissors Specification
    • int scissors

      Detectors

      Detectors are a part of AI tools.

      Use detectors to automatically identify and locate objects in images or videos.

      Labels matching

      Each model is trained on a dataset and supports only the dataset’s labels.

      For example:

      • DL model has the label car.
      • Your task (or project) has the label vehicle.

      To annotate, you need to match these two labels to give DL model a hint, that in this case car = vehicle.

      If you have a label that is not on the list of DL labels, you will not be able to match them.

      For this reason, supported DL models are suitable only for certain labels.
      To check the list of labels for each model, see Detectors models.

      Annotate with detectors

      To annotate with detectors, do the following:

      1. Click Magic wand Magic wand, and go to the Detectors tab.

      2. From the Model drop-down, select model (see Detectors models).

      3. From the left drop-down select the DL model label, from the right drop-down select the matching label of your task.

      4. (Optional) If the model returns masks, and you need to convert masks to polygons, use the Convert masks to polygons toggle.

      5. Click Annotate.

      This action will automatically annotate one frame. For automatic annotation of multiple frames, see Automatic annotation.

      Detectors models

      Model Description
      Mask RCNN The model generates polygons for each instance of an object in the image.

      For more information, see:
    • GitHub: Mask RCNN
    • Paper: Mask RCNN
    • Faster RCNN The model generates bounding boxes for each instance of an object in the image.
      In this model, RPN and Fast R-CNN are combined into a single network.

      For more information, see:
    • GitHub: Faster RCNN
    • Paper: Faster RCNN
    • YOLO v3 YOLO v3 is a family of object detection architectures and models pre-trained on the COCO dataset.

      For more information, see:
    • GitHub: YOLO v3
    • Site: YOLO v3
    • Paper: YOLO v3
    • Semantic segmentation for ADAS This is a segmentation network to classify each pixel into 20 classes.

      For more information, see:
    • Site: ADAS
    • Mask RCNN with Tensorflow Mask RCNN version with Tensorflow. The model generates polygons for each instance of an object in the image.

      For more information, see:
    • GitHub: Mask RCNN
    • Paper: Mask RCNN
    • Faster RCNN with Tensorflow Faster RCNN version with Tensorflow. The model generates bounding boxes for each instance of an object in the image.
      In this model, RPN and Fast R-CNN are combined into a single network.

      For more information, see:
    • Site: Faster RCNN with Tensorflow
    • Paper: Faster RCNN
    • RetinaNet Pytorch implementation of RetinaNet object detection.


      For more information, see:
    • Specification: RetinaNet
    • Paper: RetinaNet
    • Documentation: RetinaNet
    • Face Detection Face detector based on MobileNetV2 as a backbone for indoor and outdoor scenes shot by a front-facing camera.


      For more information, see:
    • Site: Face Detection 0205
    • Trackers

      Trackers are part of AI and OpenCV tools.

      Use trackers to identify and label objects in a video or image sequence that are moving or changing over time.

      AI tools: annotate with trackers

      To annotate with trackers, do the following:

      1. Click Magic wand Magic wand, and go to the Trackers tab.


        Start tracking an object

      2. From the Label drop-down, select the label for the object.

      3. From Tracker drop-down, select tracker.

      4. Click Track, and annotate the objects with the bounding box in the first frame.

      5. Go to the top menu and click Next (or the F on the keyboard) to move to the next frame.
        All annotated objects will be automatically tracked.

      OpenCV: annotate with trackers

      To annotate with trackers, do the following:

      1. On the menu toolbar, click OpenCVOpenCV and wait for the library to load.


      2. Go to the Tracker tab, select the label, and click Tracking.


        Start tracking an object

      3. From the Label drop-down, select the label for the object.

      4. From Tracker drop-down, select tracker.

      5. Click Track.

      6. To move to the next frame, on the top menu click the Next button (or F on the keyboard).

      All annotated objects will be automatically tracked when you move to the next frame.

      When tracking

      • To enable/disable tracking, use Tracker switcher on the sidebar.

        Tracker switcher

      • Trackable objects have an indication on canvas with a model name.

        Tracker indication

      • You can follow the tracking by the messages appearing at the top.

        Tracker pop-up window

      Trackers models

      Model Tool Description Example
      TrackerMIL OpenCV TrackerMIL model is not bound to
      labels and can be used for any
      object. It is a fast client-side model
      designed to track simple non-overlapping objects.

      For more information, see:
    • Article: Object Tracking using OpenCV
    • Annotation using a tracker
      SiamMask AI Tools Fast online Object Tracking and Segmentation. The trackable object will
      be tracked automatically if the previous frame
      was the latest keyframe for the object.

      For more information, see:
    • GitHub: SiamMask
    • Paper: SiamMask
    • Annotation using a tracker
      Transformer Tracking (TransT) AI Tools Simple and efficient online tool for object tracking and segmentation.
      If the previous frame was the latest keyframe
      for the object, the trackable object will be tracked automatically.
      This is a modified version of the PyTracking
      Python framework based on Pytorch


      For more information, see:
    • GitHub: TransT
    • Paper: TransT
    • Annotation using a tracker

      OpenCV: histogram equalization

      Histogram equalization improves the contrast by stretching the intensity range.

      It increases the global contrast of images when its usable data is represented by close contrast values.

      It is useful in images with backgrounds and foregrounds that are bright or dark.

      To improve the contrast of the image, do the following:

      1. In the OpenCV menu, go to the Image tab.
      2. Click on Histogram equalization button.

      Histogram equalization will improve contrast on current and following frames.

      Example of the result:

      To disable Histogram equalization, click on the button again.

      2.22 - Automatic annotation

      Automatic annotation of tasks

      Automatic annotation in CVAT is a tool that you can use to automatically pre-annotate your data with pre-trained models.

      CVAT can use models from the following sources:

      The following table describes the available options:

      Self-hosted Cloud
      Price Free See Pricing
      Models You have to add models You can use pre-installed models
      Hugging Face & Roboflow
      integration
      Not supported Supported

      See:

      Running Automatic annotation

      To start automatic annotation, do the following:

      1. On the top menu, click Tasks.

      2. Find the task you want to annotate and click Action > Automatic annotation.

      3. In the Automatic annotation dialog, from the drop-down list, select a model.

      4. Match the labels of the model and the task.

      5. (Optional) In case you need the model to return masks as polygons, switch toggle Return masks as polygons.

      6. (Optional) In case you need to remove all previous annotations, switch toggle Clean old annotations.

      7. Click Annotate.

      CVAT will show the progress of annotation on the progress bar.

      Progress bar

      You can stop the automatic annotation at any moment by clicking cancel.

      Labels matching

      Each model is trained on a dataset and supports only the dataset’s labels.

      For example:

      • DL model has the label car.
      • Your task (or project) has the label vehicle.

      To annotate, you need to match these two labels to give CVAT a hint that, in this case, car = vehicle.

      If you have a label that is not on the list of DL labels, you will not be able to match them.

      For this reason, supported DL models are suitable only for certain labels.

      To check the list of labels for each model, see Models papers and official documentation.

      Models

      Automatic annotation uses pre-installed and added models.

      For self-hosted solutions, you need to install Automatic Annotation first and add models.

      List of pre-installed models:

      Model Description
      Attributed face detection Three OpenVINO models work together:

    • Face Detection 0205: face detector based on MobileNetV2 as a backbone with a FCOS head for indoor and outdoor scenes shot by a front-facing camera.
    • Emotions recognition retail 0003: fully convolutional network for recognition of five emotions (‘neutral’, ‘happy’, ‘sad’, ‘surprise’, ‘anger’).
    • Age gender recognition retail 0013: fully convolutional network for simultaneous Age/Gender recognition. The network can recognize the age of people in the [18 - 75] years old range; it is not applicable for children since their faces were not in the training set.
    • RetinaNet R101 RetinaNet is a one-stage object detection model that utilizes a focal loss function to address class imbalance during training. Focal loss applies a modulating term to the cross entropy loss to focus learning on hard negative examples. RetinaNet is a single, unified network composed of a backbone network and two task-specific subnetworks.

      For more information, see:
    • Site: RetinaNET
    • Text detection Text detector based on PixelLink architecture with MobileNetV2, depth_multiplier=1.4 as a backbone for indoor/outdoor scenes.

      For more information, see:
    • Site: OpenVINO Text detection 004
    • YOLO v3 YOLO v3 is a family of object detection architectures and models pre-trained on the COCO dataset.

      For more information, see:
    • Site: YOLO v3
    • YOLO v7 YOLOv7 is an advanced object detection model that outperforms other detectors in terms of both speed and accuracy. It can process frames at a rate ranging from 5 to 160 frames per second (FPS) and achieves the highest accuracy with 56.8% average precision (AP) among real-time object detectors running at 30 FPS or higher on the V100 graphics processing unit (GPU).

      For more information, see:
    • GitHub: YOLO v7
    • Paper: YOLO v7
    • Adding models from Hugging Face and Roboflow

      In case you did not find the model you need, you can add a model of your choice from Hugging Face or Roboflow.

      Note, that you cannot add models from Hugging Face and Roboflow to self-hosted CVAT.

      For more information, see Streamline annotation by integrating Hugging Face and Roboflow models.

      This video demonstrates the process:

      2.23 - Specification for annotators

      Learn how to easily create and add specification for annotators using the Guide feature.

      The Guide feature provides a built-in markdown editor that allows you to create specification for annotators.

      Once you create and submit the specification, it will be accessible from the annotation interface (see below).

      You can attach the specification to Projects or to Tasks.

      The attachment procedure is the same for individual users and organizations.

      See:

      Adding specification to Project

      To add specification to the Projects, do the following:

      1. Go to the Projects page and click on the project to which you want to add specification.
      2. Under the Project description, click Edit.

      Project specification

      1. Add instruction to the Markdown editor, and click Submit.

      Editing rights

      • For individual users: only the project owner and the project assignee can edit the specification.
      • For organizations: specification additionally can be edited by the organization owner and maintainer

      Editor rights

      Adding specification to Task

      To add specification to the Task, do the following:

      1. Go to the Tasks page and click on the task to which you want to add specification.

      2. Under the Task description, click Edit.

        Task specification

      3. Add instruction to the Markdown editor, and click Submit.

      Editing rights

      • For individual users: only the task owner and task assignee can edit the specification.
      • For organizations: only the task owner, maintainer, and task assignee can edit the specification.

      Editor rights

      Access to specification for annotators

      The specification is opened automatically when the job has new annotation state. It means, that it will open when the assigned user begins working on the first job within a Project or Task.

      The specifications will not automatically reopen if the user moves to another job within the same Project or Task.

      If a Project or Task is reassigned to another annotator, the specifications will automatically be shown when the annotator opens the first job but will not reappear for subsequent jobs.

      To enable the option for specifications to always open automatically, append the ?openGuide parameter to the end of the job URL you share with the annotator:

      /tasks/<task_id>/jobs/<job_id>?openGuide
      

      For example:

      https://app.cvat.ai/tasks/taskID/jobs/jobID?openGuide
      

      To open specification manually, do the following:

      1. Open the job to see the annotation interface.
      2. In the top right corner, click Guide button(Guide Icon).

      Markdown editor guide

      The markdown editor for Guide has two panes. Add instructions to the left pane, and the editor will immediately show the formatted result on the right.

      Markdown editor

      You can write in raw markdown or use the toolbar on the top of the editor.

      Markdown editor

      Element Description
      1 Text formatting: bold, cursive, and strikethrough.
      2 Insert a horizontal rule (horizontal line).
      3 Add a title, heading, or subheading. It provides a drop-down list to select the title level (from 1 to 6).
      4 Add a link.
      Note: If you left-click on the link, it will open in the same window.
      5 Add a quote.
      6 Add a single line of code.
      7 Add a block of code.
      8 Add a comment. The comment is only visible to Guide editors and remains invisible to annotators.
      9 Add a picture. To use this option, first, upload the picture to an external resource and then add the link in the editor. Alternatively, you can drag and drop a picture into the editor, which will upload it to the CVAT server and add it to the specification.
      10 Add a list: bullet list, numbered list, and checklist.
      11 Hide the editor pane: options to hide the right pane, show both panes or hide the left pane.
      12 Enable full-screen mode.

      Specification for annotators’ video tutorial

      Video tutorial on how to use the Guide feature.

      2.24 - Backup Task and Project

      Overview

      In CVAT you can backup tasks and projects. This can be used to backup a task or project on your PC or to transfer to another server.

      Create backup

      To backup a task or project, open the action menu and select Backup Task or Backup Project.

      You can backup a project or a task locally on your PC or using an attached cloud storage.

      (Optional) Specify the name in the Custom name text field for backup, otherwise the file of backup name will be given by the mask project_<project_name>_backup_<date>_<time>.zip for the projects and task_<task_name>_backup_<date>_<time>.zip for the tasks.

      If you want to save a backup to a specific attached cloud storage, you should additionally turn off the switch Use default settings, select the Cloud storage value in the Target storage and select this storage in the list of the attached cloud storages.

      Create backup APIs

      • endpoints:
        • /tasks/{id}/backup
        • /projects/{id}/backup
      • method: GET
      • responses: 202, 201 with zip archive payload

      Upload backup APIs

      • endpoints:
        • /api/tasks/backup
        • /api/projects/backup
      • method: POST
      • Content-Type: multipart/form-data
      • responses: 202, 201 with json payload

      Create from backup

      To create a task or project from a backup, go to the tasks or projects page, click the Create from backup button and select the archive you need.

      As a result, you’ll get a task containing data, parameters, and annotations of the previously exported task.

      Backup file structure

      As a result, you’ll get a zip archive containing data, task or project and task specification and annotations with the following structure:

          .
          ├── data
          │   └── {user uploaded data}
          ├── task.json
          └── annotations.json
        
          .
          ├── task_{id}
          │   ├── data
          │   │   └── {user uploaded data}
          │   ├── task.json
          │   └── annotations.json
          └── project.json
        

      2.25 - Frame deleting

      This section explains how to delete and restore a frame from a task.

      Delete frame

      You can delete the current frame from a task. This frame will not be presented either in the UI or in the exported annotation. Thus, it is possible to mark corrupted frames that are not subject to annotation.

      1. Go to the Job annotation view and click on the Delete frame button (Alt+Del).

        Note: When you delete with the shortcut, the frame will be deleted immediately without additional confirmation.

      2. After that you will be asked to confirm frame deleting.

        Note: all annotations from that frame will be deleted, unsaved annotations will be saved and the frame will be invisible in the annotation view (Until you make it visible in the settings). If there is some overlap in the task and the deleted frame falls within this interval, then this will cause this frame to become unavailable in another job as well.

      3. When you delete a frame in a job with tracks, you may need to adjust some tracks manually. Common adjustments are:

        • Add keyframes at the edges of the deleted interval for the interpolation to look correct;
        • Move the keyframe start or end keyframe to the correct side of the deleted interval.

      Configure deleted frames visibility and navigation

      If you need to enable showing the deleted frames, you can do it in the settings.

      1. Go to the settings and chose Player settings.

      2. Click on the Show deleted frames checkbox. And close the settings dialog.

      3. Then you will be able to navigate through deleted frames. But annotation tools will be unavailable. Deleted frames differ in the corresponding overlay.

      4. There are view ways to navigate through deleted frames without enabling this option:

        • Go to the frame via direct navigation methods: navigation slider or frame input field,
        • Go to the frame via the direct link.
      5. Navigation with step will not count deleted frames.

      Restore deleted frame

      You can also restore deleted frames in the task.

      1. Turn on deleted frames visibility, as it was told in the previous part, and go to the deleted frame you want to restore.

      2. Click on the Restore icon. The frame will be restored immediately.

      2.26 - Join and slice tools

      This section explains how to slice or join several labels

      In CVAT you can modify shapes by either joining multiple shapes into a single label or slicing a single label into several shapes.

      This document provides guidance on how to perform these operations effectively.

      See:

      Joining masks

      The Join masks tool (Join masks tool icon), is specifically designed to work with mask annotations.

      This tool is useful in scenarios where a single object in an image is annotated with multiple shapes, and there is a need to merge these shapes into a single one.

      Join masks

      To join masks, do the following:

      1. From the Edit block, select Join masks Join masks tool icon.
      2. Click on the canvas area, to select masks that you want to join.
      3. (Optional) To remove the selection click the mask one more time.
      4. Click again on Join masksJoin masks tool icon (J) to execute the join operation.

      Upon completion, the selected masks will be joined into a single mask.

      Join masks gif

      Slicing polygons and masks

      The Slice mask/polygon (Slicing tool icon) is compatible with both mask and polygon annotations.

      This tool is useful in scenarios where multiple objects in an image are annotated with one shape, and there is a need to slice this shape into multiple parts.

      Note: The shape can be sliced only in two parts at a time. Use the slice tool several times to split a shape to as many parts as you need.

      Slicing tool

      To slice mask or polygon, do the following:

      1. From the Edit block, select Slice mask/polygon Slicing tool icon.
      2. Click on the shape you intend to slice. A black contour will appear around the selected shape.
      3. Set an initial point for slicing by clicking on the contour.
      4. Draw a line across the shape to define the slicing path.
        Hold Shift to add points automatically on cursor movement.
        Note: The line cannot cross itself.
        Note: The line cannot cross the contour more than twice.
      5. (Optional)> Right-click to cancel the latest point.
      6. Click on the contour (Alt+J) (outside the contour) to finalize the slicing.

      Slicing tool

      2.27 - Import datasets and upload annotation

      This section explains how to download and upload datasets (including annotation, images, and metadata) of projects, tasks, and jobs.

      Export dataset

      You can export a dataset to a project, task or job.

      1. To download the latest annotations, you have to save all changes first. Click the Save button. There is a Ctrl+S shortcut to save annotations quickly.

      2. After that, click the Menu button. Exporting and importing of task and project datasets takes place through the Action menu.

      3. Press the Export task dataset button.

      4. Choose the format for exporting the dataset. Exporting and importing is available in:


      5. To download images with the dataset, enable the Save images option.

      6. (Optional) To name the resulting archive, use the Custom name field.

      7. You can choose a storage for dataset export by selecting a target storage Local or Cloud storage. The default settings are the settings that had been selected when the project was created (for example, if you specified a local storage when you created the project, then by default, you will be prompted to export the dataset to your PC). You can find out the default value by hovering the mouse over the ?. Learn more about attach cloud storage.

      Import dataset

      You can import dataset only to a project. In this case, the data will be split into subsets. To import a dataset, do the following on the Project page:

      • Open the Actions menu.
      • Press the Import dataset button.
      • Select the dataset format (if you did not specify a custom name during export, the format will be in the archive name).
      • Drag the file to the file upload area or click on the upload area to select the file through the explorer.

      • You can also import a dataset from an attached cloud storage. Here you should select the annotation format, then select a cloud storage from the list or use default settings if you have already specified required cloud storage for task or project and specify a zip archive to the text field File name.

      During the import process, you will be able to track the progress of the import.

      Upload annotations

      In the task or job you can upload an annotation. For this select the item Upload annotation in the menu Action of the task or in the job Menu on the Top panel select the format in which you plan to upload the annotation and select the annotation file or archive via explorer.

      Or you can also use the attached cloud storage to upload the annotation file.

      2.28 - Export annotations and data from CVAT

      List of data export formats formats supported by CVAT.

      In CVAT, you have the option to export data in various formats. The choice of export format depends on the type of annotation as well as the intended future use of the dataset.

      See:

      Data export formats

      The table below outlines the available formats for data export in CVAT.

      Format Type Computer Vision Task Models Shapes Attributes Video Tracks
      CamVid 1.0 .txt
      .png
      Semantic
      Segmentation
      U-Net, SegNet, DeepLab,
      PSPNet, FCN, Mask R-CNN,
      ICNet, ERFNet, HRNet,
      V-Net, and others.
      Polygons Not supported Not supported
      Cityscapes 1.0 .txt
      .png
      Semantic
      Segmentation
      U-Net, SegNet, DeepLab,
      PSPNet, FCN, ERFNet,
      ICNet, Mask R-CNN, HRNet,
      ENet, and others.
      Polygons Specific attributes Not supported
      COCO 1.0 JSON Detection, Semantic
      Segmentation
      YOLO (You Only Look Once),
      Faster R-CNN, Mask R-CNN, SSD (Single Shot MultiBox Detector),
      RetinaNet, EfficientDet, UNet,
      DeepLabv3+, CenterNet, Cascade R-CNN, and others.
      Bounding Boxes, Polygons Specific attributes Not supported
      COCO Keypoints 1.0 .xml Keypoints OpenPose, PoseNet, AlphaPose,
      SPM (Single Person Model),
      Mask R-CNN with Keypoint Detection:, and others.
      Skeletons Specific attributes Not supported
      CVAT for images 1.1 .xml Any in 2D except for Video Tracking Any model that can decode the format. Bounding Boxes, Polygons,
      Polylines, Points, Cuboids,
      Skeletons, Ellipses, Masks, Tags.
      All attributes Not supported
      CVAT for video 1.1 .xml Any in 2D except for Classification Any model that can decode the format. Bounding Boxes, Polygons,
      Polylines, Points, Cuboids,
      Skeletons, Ellipses, Masks.
      All attributes Supported
      Datumaro 1.0 JSON Any Any model that can decode the format.
      Main format in Datumaro framework
      Bounding Boxes, Polygons,
      Polylines, Points, Cuboids,
      Skeletons, Ellipses, Masks, Tags.
      All attributes Supported
      ICDAR
      Includes ICDAR Recognition 1.0,
      ICDAR Detection 1.0,
      and ICDAR Segmentation 1.0
      descriptions.
      .txt Text recognition,
      Text detection,
      Text segmentation
      EAST: Efficient and Accurate
      Scene Text Detector, CRNN, Mask TextSpotter, TextSnake,
      and others.
      Tag, Bounding Boxes, Polygons Specific attributes Not supported
      ImageNet 1.0 .jpg
      .txt
      Semantic Segmentation,
      Classification,
      Detection
      VGG (VGG16, VGG19), Inception, YOLO, Faster R-CNN , U-Net, and others Tags No attributes Not supported
      KITTI 1.0 .txt
      .png
      Semantic Segmentation, Detection, 3D PointPillars, SECOND, AVOD, YOLO, DeepSORT, PWC-Net, ORB-SLAM, and others. Bounding Boxes, Polygons Specific attributes Not supported
      LabelMe 3.0 .xml Compatibility,
      Semantic Segmentation
      U-Net, Mask R-CNN, Fast R-CNN,
      Faster R-CNN, DeepLab, YOLO,
      and others.
      Bounding Boxes, Polygons Supported (Polygons) Not supported
      LFW 1.0 .txt Verification,
      Face recognition
      OpenFace, VGGFace & VGGFace2,
      FaceNet, ArcFace,
      and others.
      Tags, Skeletons Specific attributes Not supported
      Market-1501 1.0 .txt Re-identification Triplet Loss Networks,
      Deep ReID models, and others.
      Bounding Boxes Specific attributes Not supported
      MOT 1.0 .txt Video Tracking,
      Detection
      SORT, MOT-Net, IOU Tracker,
      and others.
      Bounding Boxes Specific attributes Supported
      MOTS PNG 1.0 .png
      .txt
      Video Tracking,
      Detection
      SORT, MOT-Net, IOU Tracker,
      and others.
      Bounding Boxes, Masks Specific attributes Supported
      Open Images 1.0 .csv Detection,
      Classification,
      Semantic Segmentation
      Faster R-CNN, YOLO, U-Net,
      CornerNet, and others.
      Bounding Boxes, Tags, Polygons Specific attributes Not supported
      PASCAL VOC 1.0 .xml Classification, Detection Faster R-CNN, SSD, YOLO,
      AlexNet, and others.
      Bounding Boxes, Tags, Polygons Specific attributes Not supported
      Segmentation Mask 1.0 .txt Semantic Segmentation Faster R-CNN, SSD, YOLO,
      AlexNet, and others.
      Polygons No attributes Not supported
      VGGFace2 1.0 .csv Face recognition VGGFace, ResNet, Inception,
      and others.
      Bounding Boxes, Points No attributes Not supported
      WIDER Face 1.0 .txt Detection SSD (Single Shot MultiBox Detector), Faster R-CNN, YOLO,
      and others.
      Bounding Boxes, Tags Specific attributes Not supported
      YOLO 1.0 .txt Detection YOLOv1, YOLOv2 (YOLO9000),
      YOLOv3, YOLOv4, and others.
      Bounding Boxes No attributes Not supported
      YOLOv8 Detection 1.0 .txt Detection YOLOv8 Bounding Boxes No attributes Not supported
      YOLOv8 Segmentation 1.0 .txt Instance Segmentation YOLOv8 Polygons, Masks No attributes Not supported
      YOLOv8 Pose 1.0 .txt Keypoints YOLOv8 Skeletons No attributes Not supported
      YOLOv8 Oriented Bounding Boxes 1.0 .txt Detection YOLOv8 Bounding Boxes No attributes Not supported
      YOLOv8 Classification 1.0 .jpg Classification YOLOv8 Tags No attributes Not supported

      Exporting dataset in CVAT

      Exporting dataset from Task

      To export the dataset from the task, follow these steps:

      1. Open Task.

      2. Go to Actions > Export task dataset.

      3. Choose the desired format from the list of available options.

      4. (Optional) Toggle the Save images switch if you wish to include images in the export.

        Note: The Save images option is a paid feature.

        Save images option

      5. Input a name for the resulting .zip archive.

      6. Click OK to initiate the export.

      Exporting dataset from Job

      To export a dataset from Job follow these steps:

      1. Navigate to Menu > Export job dataset.

        Export dataset

      2. Choose the desired format from the list of available options.

      3. (Optional) Toggle the Save images switch if you wish to include images in the export.

        Note: The Save images option is a paid feature.

        Save images option

      4. Input a name for the resulting .zip archive.

      5. Click OK to initiate the export.

      Data export video tutorial

      For more information on the process, see the following tutorial:

      2.28.1 - CVAT for image

      How to export and import data in CVAT for image format

      This is CVAT’s native annotation format, which fully supports all of CVAT’s annotation features. It is ideal for creating data backups.

      For more information, see:

      CVAT for image export

      Applicable for all computer vision tasks in 2D except for Video Tracking.

      For export of images:

      • Supported annotations: Bounding Boxes, Polygons, Polylines, Points, Cuboids, Ellipses, Skeletons, Tags, Masks.
      • Attributes: Supported.
      • Tracks: Can be exported, but track id will be lost.

      The downloaded file is a zip archive with following structure:

      taskname.zip/
      ├── images/
      |   ├── img1.png
      |   └── img2.jpg
      └── annotations.xml
      

      CVAT for video export

      Applicable for all computer vision tasks in 2D except for Classification

      For export of images:

      • Supported annotations: Bounding Boxes, Polygons, Polylines, Points, Cuboids, Ellipses, Skeletons,Masks.
      • Attributes: Supported.
      • Tracks: Supported (tracks are split by frames).
      • Shapes are exported as single-frame tracks

      Downloaded file is a zip archive with following structure:

      taskname.zip/
      ├── images/
      |   ├── frame_000000.png
      |   └── frame_000001.png
      └── annotations.xml
      

      CVAT loader

      Uploaded file: either an XML file or a .zip file containing the aforementioned structures.

      2.28.2 - Datumaro

      How to export and import data in Datumaro format

      Datumaro serves as a versatile format capable of handling complex dataset and annotation transformations, format conversions, dataset statistics, and merging, among other features. It functions as the dataset support provider within CVAT. Essentially, anything you can do in CVAT, you can also achieve in Datumaro, but with the added benefit of specialized dataset operations.

      For more information, see:

      Export annotations in Datumaro format

      For export of images: any 2D shapes, tags

      • Supported annotations: Bounding Boxes, Polygons, Polylines, Points, Cuboids, Tags, Ellipses, Masks, Skeletons.
      • Attributes: Supported.
      • Tracks: Supported.

      The downloaded file is a zip archive with the following structure:

      taskname.zip/
      ├── annotations/
      │   └── default.json # fully description of classes and all dataset items
      └── images/ # if the option `save images` was selected
          └── default
              ├── image1.jpg
              ├── image2.jpg
              ├── ...
      

      Import annotations in Datumaro format

      • supported annotations: Bounding Boxes, Polygons, Polylines, Masks, Points, Cuboids, Labels, Skeletons
      • supported attributes: any

      Uploaded file: a zip archive of the following structure:

      <archive_name>.zip/
      └── annotations/
          ├── subset1.json # fully description of classes and all dataset items
          └── subset2.json # fully description of classes and all dataset items
      

      JSON annotations files in the annotations directory should have similar structure:

      {
        "info": {},
        "categories": {
          "label": {
            "labels": [
              {
                "name": "label_0",
                "parent": "",
                "attributes": []
              },
              {
                "name": "label_1",
                "parent": "",
                "attributes": []
              }
            ],
            "attributes": []
          }
        },
        "items": [
          {
            "id": "img1",
            "annotations": [
              {
                "id": 0,
                "type": "polygon",
                "attributes": {},
                "group": 0,
                "label_id": 1,
                "points": [1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, 7.0, 8.0],
                "z_order": 0
              },
              {
                "id": 1,
                "type": "bbox",
                "attributes": {},
                "group": 1,
                "label_id": 0,
                "z_order": 0,
                "bbox": [1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0]
              },
              {
                "id": 2,
                "type": "mask",
                "attributes": {},
                "group": 1,
                "label_id": 0,
                "rle": {
                  "counts": "d0d0:F\\0",
                  "size": [10, 10]
                },
                "z_order": 0
              }
            ]
          }
        ]
      }
      

      2.28.3 - LabelMe

      How to export and import data in LabelMe format

      The LabelMe format is often used for image segmentation tasks in computer vision. While it may not be specifically tied to any particular models, it’s designed to be versatile and can be easily converted to formats that are compatible with popular frameworks like TensorFlow or PyTorch.

      For more information, see:

      LabelMe export

      For export of images:

      • Supported annotations: Bounding Boxes, Polygons.
      • Attributes: Supported for Polygons.
      • Tracks: Not supported.

      The downloaded file is a .zip archive with the following structure:

      taskname.zip/
      ├── img1.jpg
      └── img1.xml
      

      LabelMe import

      Uploaded file: a zip archive of the following structure:

      taskname.zip/
      ├── Masks/
      |   ├── img1_mask1.png
      |   └── img1_mask2.png
      ├── img1.xml
      ├── img2.xml
      └── img3.xml
      
      • supported annotations: Rectangles, Polygons, Masks (as polygons)

      2.28.4 - MOT

      How to export and import data in MOT format

      The MOT (Multiple Object Tracking) sequence format is widely used for evaluating multi-object tracking algorithms, particularly in the domains of pedestrian tracking, vehicle tracking, and more. The MOT sequence format essentially contains frames of video along with annotations that specify object locations and identities over time.

      For more information, see:

      MOT export

      For export of images and videos:

      • Supported annotations: Bounding Boxes.
      • Attributes: visibility (number), ignored (checkbox)
      • Tracks: Supported.

      The downloaded file is a .zip archive with the following structure:

      taskname.zip/
      ├── img1/
      |   ├── image1.jpg
      |   └── image2.jpg
      └── gt/
          ├── labels.txt
          └── gt.txt
      
      # labels.txt
      cat
      dog
      person
      ...
      
      # gt.txt
      # frame_id, track_id, x, y, w, h, "not ignored", class_id, visibility, <skipped>
      1,1,1363,569,103,241,1,1,0.86014
      ...
      

      MOT import

      Uploaded file: a zip archive of the structure above or:

      archive.zip/
      └── gt/
          └── gt.txt
          └── labels.txt # optional, mandatory for non-official labels
      
      • supported annotations: Rectangle tracks

      2.28.5 - MOTS

      How to export and import data in MOTS format

      The MOT (Multiple Object Tracking) sequence format is widely used for evaluating multi-object tracking algorithms, particularly in the domains of pedestrian tracking, vehicle tracking, and more. The MOT sequence format essentially contains frames of video along with annotations that specify object locations and identities over time.

      This version encoded as .png. Supports masks.

      For more information, see:

      MOTS PNG export

      For export of images and videos:

      • Supported annotations: Bounding Boxes, Masks
      • Attributes: visibility (number), ignored (checkbox).
      • Tracks: Supported.

      The downloaded file is a .zip archive with the following structure:

      taskname.zip/
      └── <any_subset_name>/
          |   images/
          |   ├── image1.jpg
          |   └── image2.jpg
          └── instances/
              ├── labels.txt
              ├── image1.png
              └── image2.png
      
      # labels.txt
      cat
      dog
      person
      ...
      
      • supported annotations: Rectangle and Polygon tracks

      MOTS PNG import

      Uploaded file: a zip archive of the structure above

      • supported annotations: Polygon tracks

      2.28.6 - COCO

      How to export and import data in COCO format

      A widely-used machine learning structure, the COCO dataset is instrumental for tasks involving object identification and image segmentation. This format is compatible with projects that employ bounding boxes or polygonal image annotations.

      For more information, see:

      COCO export

      For export of images and videos:

      • Supported annotations: Bounding Boxes, Polygons.
      • Attributes:
        • is_crowd This can either be a checkbox or an integer (with values of 0 or 1). It indicates that the instance (or group of objects) should include an RLE-encoded mask in the segmentation field. All shapes within the group coalesce into a single, overarching mask, with the largest shape setting the properties for the entire object group.
        • score: This numerical field represents the annotation score.
        • Arbitrary attributes: These will be stored within the attributes section of the annotation.
      • Tracks: Not supported.

      The downloaded file is a .zip archive with the following structure:

      archive.zip/
      ├── images/
      │   ├── train/
      │   │   ├── <image_name1.ext>
      │   │   ├── <image_name2.ext>
      │   │   └── ...
      │   └── val/
      │       ├── <image_name1.ext>
      │       ├── <image_name2.ext>
      │       └── ...
      └── annotations/
         ├── <task>_<subset_name>.json
         └── ...
      

      When exporting a dataset from a Project, subset names will mirror those used within the project itself. Otherwise, a singular default subset will be created to house all the dataset information. The section aligns with one of the specific COCO tasks, such as instances, panoptic, image_info, labels, captions, or stuff.

      COCO import

      Uplod format: a single unpacked *.json or a zip archive with the structure described above or here (without images).

      • supported annotations: Polygons, Rectangles (if the segmentation field is empty)
      • supported tasks: instances, person_keypoints (only segmentations will be imported), panoptic

      How to create a task from MS COCO dataset

      1. Download the MS COCO dataset.

        For example val images and instances annotations

      2. Create a CVAT task with the following labels:

        person bicycle car motorcycle airplane bus train truck boat "traffic light" "fire hydrant" "stop sign" "parking meter" bench bird cat dog horse sheep cow elephant bear zebra giraffe backpack umbrella handbag tie suitcase frisbee skis snowboard "sports ball" kite "baseball bat" "baseball glove" skateboard surfboard "tennis racket" bottle "wine glass" cup fork knife spoon bowl banana apple sandwich orange broccoli carrot "hot dog" pizza donut cake chair couch "potted plant" bed "dining table" toilet tv laptop mouse remote keyboard "cell phone" microwave oven toaster sink refrigerator book clock vase scissors "teddy bear" "hair drier" toothbrush
        
      3. Select val2017.zip as data (See Creating an annotation task guide for details)

      4. Unpack annotations_trainval2017.zip

      5. click Upload annotation button, choose COCO 1.1 and select instances_val2017.json annotation file. It can take some time.

      2.28.7 - COCO Keypoints

      How to export and import data in COCO Keypoints format

      The COCO Keypoints format is designed specifically for human pose estimation tasks, where the objective is to identify and localize body joints (keypoints) on a human figure within an image.

      This specialized format is used with a variety of state-of-the-art models focused on pose estimation.

      For more information, see:

      COCO Keypoints export

      For export of images:

      • Supported annotations: Skeletons
      • Attributes:
        • is_crowd This can either be a checkbox or an integer (with values of 0 or 1). It indicates that the instance (or group of objects) should include an RLE-encoded mask in the segmentation field. All shapes within the group coalesce into a single, overarching mask, with the largest shape setting the properties for the entire object group.
        • score: This numerical field represents the annotation score.
        • Arbitrary attributes: These will be stored within the attributes section of the annotation.
      • Tracks: Not supported.

      Downloaded file is a .zip archive with the following structure:

      archive.zip/
      ├── images/
      │
      │   ├── <image_name1.ext>
      │   ├── <image_name2.ext>
      │   └── ...
      ├──<annotations>.xml
      

      COCO import

      Uploaded file: a single unpacked *.json or a zip archive with the structure described here (without images).

      • supported annotations: Skeletons

      person_keypoints,

      Support for COCO tasks via Datumaro is described here For example, support for COCO keypoints over Datumaro:

      1. Install Datumaro pip install datumaro
      2. Export the task in the Datumaro format, unzip
      3. Export the Datumaro project in coco / coco_person_keypoints formats datum export -f coco -p path/to/project [-- --save-images]

      This way, one can export CVAT points as single keypoints or keypoint lists (without the visibility COCO flag).

      2.28.8 - Pascal VOC

      How to export and import data in Pascal VOC format

      The Pascal VOC (Visual Object Classes) format is one of the earlier established benchmarks for object classification and detection, which provides a standardized image data set for object class recognition.

      The export data format is XML-based and has been widely adopted in computer vision tasks.

      For more information, see:

      Pascal VOC export

      For export of images:

      • Supported annotations: Bounding Boxes (detection), Tags (classification), Polygons (segmentation)
      • Attributes:
        • occluded as both UI option and a separate attribute.
        • truncated and difficult must be defined for labels as checkbox.
        • Arbitrary attributes in the attributes section of XML files.
      • Tracks: Not supported.

      The downloaded file is a .zip archive with the following structure:

      taskname.zip/
      ├── JPEGImages/
      │   ├── <image_name1>.jpg
      │   ├── <image_name2>.jpg
      │   └── <image_nameN>.jpg
      ├── Annotations/
      │   ├── <image_name1>.xml
      │   ├── <image_name2>.xml
      │   └── <image_nameN>.xml
      ├── ImageSets/
      │   └── Main/
      │       └── default.txt
      └── labelmap.txt
      
      # labelmap.txt
      # label : color_rgb : 'body' parts : actions
      background:::
      aeroplane:::
      bicycle:::
      bird:::
      

      Pascal VOC import

      Supported attributes: action attributes (import only, should be defined as checkbox -es)

      Uploaded file: a zip archive of the structure declared above or the following:

      taskname.zip/
      ├── <image_name1>.xml
      ├── <image_name2>.xml
      └── <image_nameN>.xml
      

      It must be possible for CVAT to match the frame name and file name from annotation .xml file (the filename tag, e. g. <filename>2008_004457.jpg</filename> ).

      There are 2 options:

      1. full match between frame name and file name from annotation .xml (in cases when task was created from images or image archive).

      2. match by frame number. File name should be <number>.jpg or frame_000000.jpg. It should be used when task was created from video.

      How to create a task from Pascal VOC dataset

      1. Download the Pascal Voc dataset (Can be downloaded from the PASCAL VOC website)

      2. Create a CVAT task with the following labels:

        aeroplane bicycle bird boat bottle bus car cat chair cow diningtable
        dog horse motorbike person pottedplant sheep sofa train tvmonitor
        

        You can add ~checkbox=difficult:false ~checkbox=truncated:false attributes for each label if you want to use them.

        Select interesting image files (See Creating an annotation task guide for details)

      3. zip the corresponding annotation files

      4. click Upload annotation button, choose Pascal VOC ZIP 1.1

        and select the zip file with annotations from previous step. It may take some time.

      2.28.9 - Segmentation Mask

      How to export and import data in Segmentation Mask format

      Segmentation masks format is often used in the training of models for tasks like semantic segmentation, instance segmentation, and panoptic segmentation.

      Segmentation Mask in CVAT is a format created by CVAT engineers inside the Pascal VOC

      Segmentation mask export

      For export of images:

      • Supported annotations: Bounding Boxes, Polygons.
      • Attributes: Not supported.
      • Tracks: Not supported.

      The downloaded file is a .zip archive with the following structure:

      taskname.zip/
      ├── labelmap.txt # optional, required for non-VOC labels
      ├── ImageSets/
      │   └── Segmentation/
      │       └── default.txt # list of image names without extension
      ├── SegmentationClass/ # merged class masks
      │   ├── image1.png
      │   └── image2.png
      └── SegmentationObject/ # merged instance masks
          ├── image1.png
          └── image2.png
      
      # labelmap.txt
      # label : color (RGB) : 'body' parts : actions
      background:0,128,0::
      aeroplane:10,10,128::
      bicycle:10,128,0::
      bird:0,108,128::
      boat:108,0,100::
      bottle:18,0,8::
      bus:12,28,0::
      

      The mask is a png image that can have either 1 or 3 channels. Each pixel in the image has a color that corresponds to a specific label. The colors are generated according to the Pascal VOC algorithm. By default, the color (0, 0, 0) is used to represent the background.

      Segmentation mask import

      Uploaded file: a zip archive of the following structure:

        taskname.zip/
        ├── labelmap.txt # optional, required for non-VOC labels
        ├── ImageSets/
        │   └── Segmentation/
        │       └── <any_subset_name>.txt
        ├── SegmentationClass/
        │   ├── image1.png
        │   └── image2.png
        └── SegmentationObject/
            ├── image1.png
            └── image2.png
      

      It is also possible to import grayscale (1-channel) PNG masks. For grayscale masks provide a list of labels with the number of lines equal to the maximum color index on images. The lines must be in the right order so that line index is equal to the color index. Lines can have arbitrary, but different, colors. If there are gaps in the used color indices in the annotations, they must be filled with arbitrary dummy labels. Example:

      q:0,128,0:: # color index 0
      aeroplane:10,10,128:: # color index 1
      _dummy2:2,2,2:: # filler for color index 2
      _dummy3:3,3,3:: # filler for color index 3
      boat:108,0,100:: # color index 3
      ...
      _dummy198:198,198,198:: # filler for color index 198
      _dummy199:199,199,199:: # filler for color index 199
      ...
      the last label:12,28,0:: # color index 200
      
      • supported shapes: Polygons

      2.28.10 - YOLO

      How to export and import data in YOLO format

      YOLO, which stands for “You Only Look Once,” is a renowned framework predominantly utilized for real-time object detection tasks. Its efficiency and speed make it an ideal choice for many applications. While YOLO has its unique data format, this format can be tailored to suit other object detection models as well.

      For more information, see:

      YOLO export

      For export of images:

      • Supported annotations: Bounding Boxes.
      • Attributes: Not supported.
      • Tracks: Not supported.

      The downloaded file is a .zip archive with the following structure:

      archive.zip/
      ├── obj.data
      ├── obj.names
      ├── obj_<subset>_data
      │   ├── image1.txt
      │   └── image2.txt
      └── train.txt # list of subset image paths
      
      # the only valid subsets are: train, valid
      # train.txt and valid.txt:
      obj_<subset>_data/image1.jpg
      obj_<subset>_data/image2.jpg
      
      # obj.data:
      classes = 3 # optional
      names = obj.names
      train = train.txt
      valid = valid.txt # optional
      backup = backup/ # optional
      
      # obj.names:
      cat
      dog
      airplane
      
      # image_name.txt:
      # label_id - id from obj.names
      # cx, cy - relative coordinates of the bbox center
      # rw, rh - relative size of the bbox
      # label_id cx cy rw rh
      1 0.3 0.8 0.1 0.3
      2 0.7 0.2 0.3 0.1
      

      Each annotation file, with the .txt extension, is named to correspond with its associated image file.

      For example, frame_000001.txt serves as the annotation for the frame_000001.jpg image.

      The structure of the .txt file is as follows: each line describes a label and a bounding box in the format label_id cx cy w h. The file obj.names contains an ordered list of label names.

      YOLO import

      Uploaded file: a zip archive of the same structure as above It must be possible to match the CVAT frame (image name) and annotation file name. There are 2 options:

      1. full match between image name and name of annotation *.txt file (in cases when a task was created from images or archive of images).

      2. match by frame number (if CVAT cannot match by name). File name should be in the following format <number>.jpg . It should be used when task was created from a video.

      How to create a task from YOLO formatted dataset (from VOC for example)

      1. Follow the official guide (see Training YOLO on VOC section) and prepare the YOLO formatted annotation files.

      2. Zip train images

        zip images.zip -j -@ < train.txt
        
      3. Create a CVAT task with the following labels:

        aeroplane bicycle bird boat bottle bus car cat chair cow diningtable dog
        horse motorbike person pottedplant sheep sofa train tvmonitor
        

        Select images. zip as data. Most likely you should use share functionality because size of images. zip is more than 500Mb. See Creating an annotation task guide for details.

      4. Create obj.names with the following content:

        aeroplane
        bicycle
        bird
        boat
        bottle
        bus
        car
        cat
        chair
        cow
        diningtable
        dog
        horse
        motorbike
        person
        pottedplant
        sheep
        sofa
        train
        tvmonitor
        
      5. Zip all label files together (we need to add only label files that correspond to the train subset):

        cat train.txt | while read p; do echo ${p%/*/*}/labels/${${p##*/}%%.*}.txt; done | zip labels.zip -j -@ obj.names
        
      6. Click Upload annotation button, choose YOLO 1.1 and select the zip file with labels from the previous step.

      2.28.11 - YOLOv8

      How to export and import data in YOLOv8 formats

      YOLOv8 is a format family which consists of four formats:

      Dataset examples:

      YOLOv8 export

      For export of images:

      • Supported annotations
        • Detection: Bounding Boxes
        • Oriented bounding box: Oriented Bounding Boxes
        • Segmentation: Polygons, Masks
        • Pose: Skeletons
      • Attributes: Not supported.
      • Tracks: Not supported.

      The downloaded file is a .zip archive with the following structure:

      archive.zip/
         ├── data.yaml  # configuration file
         ├── train.txt  # list of train subset image paths
         ├── images/
         │   ├── train/  # directory with images for train subset
         │   │    ├── image1.jpg
         │   │    ├── image2.jpg
         │   │    ├── image3.jpg
         │   │    └── ...
         ├── labels/
         │   ├── train/  # directory with annotations for train subset
         │   │    ├── image1.txt
         │   │    ├── image2.txt
         │   │    ├── image3.txt
         │   │    └── ...
      
      # train.txt:
      images/<subset>/image1.jpg
      images/<subset>/image2.jpg
      ...
      
      # data.yaml:
      path:  ./ # dataset root dir
      train: train.txt  # train images (relative to 'path')
      
      # YOLOv8 Pose specific field
      # First number is the number of points in a skeleton.
      # If there are several skeletons with different number of points, it is the greatest number of points
      # Second number defines the format of point info in annotation txt files
      kpt_shape: [17, 3]
      
      # Classes
      names:
        0: person
        1: bicycle
        2: car
        # ...
      
      # <image_name>.txt:
      # content depends on format
      
      # YOLOv8 Detection:
      # label_id - id from names field of data.yaml
      # cx, cy - relative coordinates of the bbox center
      # rw, rh - relative size of the bbox
      # label_id cx cy rw rh
      1 0.3 0.8 0.1 0.3
      2 0.7 0.2 0.3 0.1
      
      # YOLOv8 Oriented Bounding Boxes:
      # xn, yn - relative coordinates of the n-th point
      # label_id x1 y1 x2 y2 x3 y3 x4 y4
      1 0.3 0.8 0.1 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.7 0.5
      2 0.7 0.2 0.3 0.1 0.4 0.5 0.5 0.6
      
      # YOLOv8 Segmentation:
      # xn, yn - relative coordinates of the n-th point
      # label_id x1 y1 x2 y2 x3 y3 ...
      1 0.3 0.8 0.1 0.3 0.4 0.5
      2 0.7 0.2 0.3 0.1 0.4 0.5 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.5
      
      # YOLOv8 Pose:
      # cx, cy - relative coordinates of the bbox center
      # rw, rh - relative size of the bbox
      # xn, yn - relative coordinates of the n-th point
      # vn - visibility of n-th point. 2 - visible, 1 - partially visible, 0 - not visible
      # if second value in kpt_shape is 3:
      # label_id cx cy rw rh x1 y1 v1 x2 y2 v2 x3 y3 v3 ...
      1 0.3 0.8 0.1 0.3 0.3 0.8 2 0.1 0.3 2 0.4 0.5 2 0.0 0.0 0 0.0 0.0 0
      2 0.3 0.8 0.1 0.3 0.7 0.2 2 0.3 0.1 1 0.4 0.5 0 0.5 0.6 2 0.7 0.5 2
      
      # if second value in kpt_shape is 2:
      # label_id cx cy rw rh x1 y1 x2 y2 x3 y3 ...
      1 0.3 0.8 0.1 0.3 0.3 0.8 0.1 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
      2 0.3 0.8 0.1 0.3 0.7 0.2 0.3 0.1 0.4 0.5 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.5
      
      # Note, that if there are several skeletons with different number of points,
      # smaller skeletons are padded with points with coordinates 0.0 0.0 and visibility = 0
      

      All coordinates must be normalized. It can be achieved by dividing x coordinates and widths by image width, and y coordinates and heights by image height.

      Note, that in CVAT you can place an object or some parts of it outside the image, which will cause the coordinates to be outside the [0, 1] range. YOLOv8 framework ignores labels with such coordinates.

      Each annotation file, with the .txt extension, is named to correspond with its associated image file.

      For example, frame_000001.txt serves as the annotation for the frame_000001.jpg image.

      2.28.12 - YOLOv8-Classification

      How to export and import data in YOLOv8 Classification format

      For more information, see:

      YOLOv8 Classification export

      For export of images:

      • Supported annotations: Tags.
      • Attributes: Not supported.
      • Tracks: Not supported.

      The downloaded file is a .zip archive with the following structure:

      archive.zip/
      ├── train
      │    ├── labels.json  # CVAT extension. Contains original ids and labels
      │    │                # is not needed when using dataset with YOLOv8 framework
      │    │                # but is useful when importing it back to CVAT
      │    ├── label_0
      │    │      ├── <image_name_0>.jpg
      │    │      ├── <image_name_1>.jpg
      │    │      ├── <image_name_2>.jpg
      │    │      ├── ...
      │    ├── label_1
      │    │      ├── <image_name_0>.jpg
      │    │      ├── <image_name_1>.jpg
      │    │      ├── <image_name_2>.jpg
      │    │      ├── ...
      ├── ...
      

      2.28.13 - ImageNet

      How to export and import data in ImageNet format

      The ImageNet is typically used for a variety of computer vision tasks, including but not limited to image classification, object detection, and segmentation.

      It is widely recognized and used in the training and benchmarking of various machine learning models.

      For more information, see:

      ImageNet export

      For export of images:

      • Supported annotations: Tags.
      • Attributes: Not supported.
      • Tracks: Not supported.

      The downloaded file is a .zip archive with the following structure:

      # if we save images:
      taskname.zip/
      ├── label1/
      |   ├── label1_image1.jpg
      |   └── label1_image2.jpg
      └── label2/
          ├── label2_image1.jpg
          ├── label2_image3.jpg
          └── label2_image4.jpg
      
      # if we keep only annotation:
      taskname.zip/
      ├── <any_subset_name>.txt
      └── synsets.txt
      

      ImageNet import

      Uploaded file: a zip archive of the structure above

      • supported annotations: Labels

      2.28.14 - Wider Face

      How to export and import data in Wider Face format

      The WIDER Face dataset is widely used for face detection tasks. Many popular models for object detection and face detection specifically are trained on this dataset for benchmarking and deployment.

      For more information, see:

      WIDER Face export

      For export of images:

      • Supported annotations: Bounding Boxes (with attributes), Tags.
      • Attributes:
        • blur, expression, illumination, pose, invalid
        • occluded (both the annotation property & an attribute).
      • Tracks: Not supported.

      The downloaded file is a .zip archive with the following structure:

      taskname.zip/
      ├── labels.txt # optional
      ├── wider_face_split/
      │   └── wider_face_<any_subset_name>_bbx_gt.txt
      └── WIDER_<any_subset_name>/
          └── images/
              ├── 0--label0/
              │   └── 0_label0_image1.jpg
              └── 1--label1/
                  └── 1_label1_image2.jpg
      

      WIDER Face import

      Uploaded file: a zip archive of the structure above

      • supported annotations: Rectangles (with attributes), Labels
      • supported attributes:
        • blur, expression, illumination, occluded, pose, invalid

      2.28.15 - CamVid

      How to export and import data in CamVid format

      The CamVid (Cambridge-driving Labeled Video Database) format is most commonly used in the realm of semantic segmentation tasks. It is particularly useful for training and evaluating models for autonomous driving and other vision-based robotics applications.

      For more information, see:

      CamVid export

      For export of images and videos:

      • Supported annotations: Bounding Boxes, Polygons.
      • Attributes: Not supported.
      • Tracks: Not supported.

      The downloaded file is a .zip archive with the following structure:

      taskname.zip/
      ├── label_colors.txt # optional, required for non-CamVid labels
      ├── <any_subset_name>/
      |   ├── image1.png
      |   └── image2.png
      ├── <any_subset_name>annot/
      |   ├── image1.png
      |   └── image2.png
      └── <any_subset_name>.txt
      
      # label_colors.txt (with color value type)
      # if you want to manually set the color for labels, configure label_colors.txt as follows:
      # color (RGB) label
      0 0 0 Void
      64 128 64 Animal
      192 0 128 Archway
      0 128 192 Bicyclist
      0 128 64 Bridge
      
      # label_colors.txt (without color value type)
      # if you do not manually set the color for labels, it will be set automatically:
      # label
      Void
      Animal
      Archway
      Bicyclist
      Bridge
      

      A mask in the CamVid dataset is typically a .png image with either one or three channels.

      In this image, each pixel is assigned a specific color that corresponds to a particular label.

      By default, the color (0, 0, 0)—or black—is used to represent the background.

      CamVid import

      For import of images:

      • Uploaded file: a .zip archive of the structure above
      • supported annotations: Polygons

      2.28.16 - VGGFace2

      How to export and import data in VGGFace2 format

      The VGGFace2 is primarily designed for face recognition tasks and is most commonly used with deep learning models specifically designed for face recognition, verification, and similar tasks.

      For more information, see:

      VGGFace2 export

      For export of images:

      • Supported annotations: Bounding Boxes, Points (landmarks - groups of 5 points).
      • Attributes: Not supported.
      • Tracks: Not supported.

      The downloaded file is a .zip archive with the following structure:

      taskname.zip/
      ├── labels.txt # optional
      ├── <any_subset_name>/
      |   ├── label0/
      |   |   └── image1.jpg
      |   └── label1/
      |       └── image2.jpg
      └── bb_landmark/
          ├── loose_bb_<any_subset_name>.csv
          └── loose_landmark_<any_subset_name>.csv
      # labels.txt
      # n000001 car
      label0 <class0>
      label1 <class1>
      

      VGGFace2 import

      Uploaded file: a zip archive of the structure above

      • supported annotations: Rectangles, Points (landmarks - groups of 5 points)

      2.28.17 - Market-1501

      How to export and import data in Market-1501 format

      The Market-1501 dataset is widely used for person re-identification tasks. It is a challenging dataset that has gained significant attention in the computer vision community.

      For more information, see:

      Market-1501 export

      For export of images:

      • Supported annotations: Bounding Boxes
      • Attributes: query (checkbox), person_id (number), camera_id(number).
      • Tracks: Not supported.

      Th downloaded file is a .zip archive with the following structure:

      taskname.zip/
      ├── bounding_box_<any_subset_name>/
      │   └── image_name_1.jpg
      └── query
          ├── image_name_2.jpg
          └── image_name_3.jpg
      # if we keep only annotation:
      taskname.zip/
      └── images_<any_subset_name>.txt
      # images_<any_subset_name>.txt
      query/image_name_1.jpg
      bounding_box_<any_subset_name>/image_name_2.jpg
      bounding_box_<any_subset_name>/image_name_3.jpg
      # image_name = 0001_c1s1_000015_00.jpg
      0001 - person id
      c1 - camera id (there are totally 6 cameras)
      s1 - sequence
      000015 - frame number in sequence
      00 - means that this bounding box is the first one among the several
      

      Market-1501 import

      Uploaded file: a zip archive of the structure above

      • supported annotations: Label market-1501 with attributes (query, person_id, camera_id)

      2.28.18 - ICDAR13/15

      How to export and import data in ICDAR13/15 format

      ICDAR 13/15 formats are typically used for text detection and recognition tasks and OCR (Optical Character Recognition).

      These formats are usually paired with specialized text detection and recognition models.

      For more information, see:

      ICDAR13/15 export

      For export of images:

      • ICDAR Recognition 1.0 (Text recognition):
        • Supported annotations: Tag icdar
        • Attributes: caption.
      • ICDAR Detection 1.0 (Text detection):
        • Supported annotations: Bounding Boxes, Polygons with lavel icdar added in constructor.
        • Attributes: text.
      • ICDAR Segmentation 1.0 (Text segmentation):
        • Supported annotations: Bounding Boxes, Polygons with label icdar added in constructor.
        • Attributes: index, text, color, center
      • Tracks: Not supported.

      The downloaded file is a .zip archive with the following structure:

      # text recognition task
      taskname.zip/
      └── word_recognition/
          └── <any_subset_name>/
              ├── images
              |   ├── word1.png
              |   └── word2.png
              └── gt.txt
      # text localization task
      taskname.zip/
      └── text_localization/
          └── <any_subset_name>/
              ├── images
              |   ├── img_1.png
              |   └── img_2.png
              ├── gt_img_1.txt
              └── gt_img_1.txt
      #text segmentation task
      taskname.zip/
      └── text_localization/
          └── <any_subset_name>/
              ├── images
              |   ├── 1.png
              |   └── 2.png
              ├── 1_GT.bmp
              ├── 1_GT.txt
              ├── 2_GT.bmp
              └── 2_GT.txt
      

      ICDAR13/15 import

      Uploaded file: a zip archive of the structure above

      Word recognition task:

      • supported annotations: Label icdar with attribute caption

      Text localization task:

      • supported annotations: Rectangles and Polygons with label icdar and attribute text

      Text segmentation task:

      • supported annotations: Rectangles and Polygons with label icdar and attributes index, text, color, center

      2.28.19 - Open Images

      How to export and import data in Open Images format

      The Open Images format is based on a large-scale, diverse dataset that contains object detection, object segmentation, visual relationship, and localized narratives annotations.

      Its export data format is compatible with many object detection and segmentation models.

      For more information, see:

      Open Images export

      For export of images:

      • Supported annotations: Bounding Boxes (detection), Tags (classification), Polygons (segmentation).

      • Supported attributes:

        • Tags: score must be defined for labels as text or number. The confidence level from 0 to 1.
        • Bounding boxes:
          score must be defined for labels as text or number. The confidence level from 0 to 1.
          occluded as both UI option and a separate attribute. Whether the object is occluded by another object.
          truncated must be defined for labels as checkbox. Whether the object extends beyond the boundary of the image.
          is_group_of must be defined for labels as checkbox. Whether the object represents a group of objects of the same class.
          is_depiction must be defined for labels as checkbox. Whether the object is a depiction (such as a drawing) rather than a real object.
          is_inside must be defined for labels as checkbox. Whether the object is seen from the inside.
        • Masks:
          box_id must be defined for labels as text. An identifier for the bounding box associated with the mask.
          predicted_iou must be defined for labels as text or number. Predicted IoU value with respect to the ground truth.
      • Tracks: Not supported.

      The downloaded file is a .zip archive with the following structure:

      └─ taskname.zip/
          ├── annotations/
          │   ├── bbox_labels_600_hierarchy.json
          │   ├── class-descriptions.csv
          |   ├── images.meta  # additional file with information about image sizes
          │   ├── <subset_name>-image_ids_and_rotation.csv
          │   ├── <subset_name>-annotations-bbox.csv
          │   ├── <subset_name>-annotations-human-imagelabels.csv
          │   └── <subset_name>-annotations-object-segmentation.csv
          ├── images/
          │   ├── subset1/
          │   │   ├── <image_name101.jpg>
          │   │   ├── <image_name102.jpg>
          │   │   └── ...
          │   ├── subset2/
          │   │   ├── <image_name201.jpg>
          │   │   ├── <image_name202.jpg>
          │   │   └── ...
          |   ├── ...
          └── masks/
              ├── subset1/
              │   ├── <mask_name101.png>
              │   ├── <mask_name102.png>
              │   └── ...
              ├── subset2/
              │   ├── <mask_name201.png>
              │   ├── <mask_name202.png>
              │   └── ...
              ├── ...
      

      Open Images import

      Uploaded file: a zip archive of the following structure:

      └─ upload.zip/
          ├── annotations/
          │   ├── bbox_labels_600_hierarchy.json
          │   ├── class-descriptions.csv
          |   ├── images.meta  # optional, file with information about image sizes
          │   ├── <subset_name>-image_ids_and_rotation.csv
          │   ├── <subset_name>-annotations-bbox.csv
          │   ├── <subset_name>-annotations-human-imagelabels.csv
          │   └── <subset_name>-annotations-object-segmentation.csv
          └── masks/
              ├── subset1/
              │   ├── <mask_name101.png>
              │   ├── <mask_name102.png>
              │   └── ...
              ├── subset2/
              │   ├── <mask_name201.png>
              │   ├── <mask_name202.png>
              │   └── ...
              ├── ...
      

      Image ids in the <subset_name>-image_ids_and_rotation.csv should match with image names in the task.

      2.28.20 - Cityscapes

      How to export and import data in Cityscapes format

      The Cityscapes format is a widely-used standard in the field of computer vision, particularly for tasks involving semantic and instance segmentation in urban scenes. This dataset format typically comprises high-resolution images of cityscapes along with detailed pixel-level annotations.

      Each pixel is labeled with a category such as “road,” “pedestrian,” or “vehicle,” making it a valuable resource for training and validating machine learning models aimed at understanding urban environments. It’s a go-to choice for researchers and professionals working on autonomous vehicles, robotics, and smart cities.

      For more information, see:

      Cityscapes export

      For export of images:

      • Supported annotations: Polygons (segmentation), Bounding Boxes.
      • Attributes:
        • is_crowd boolean, should be defined for labels as checkbox. Specifies if the annotation label can distinguish between different instances. If False, the annotation id field encodes the instance id.
      • Tracks: Not supported.

      The downloaded file is a .zip archive with the following structure:

      .
      ├── label_color.txt
      ├── gtFine
      │   ├── <subset_name>
      │   │   └── <city_name>
      │   │       ├── image_0_gtFine_instanceIds.png
      │   │       ├── image_0_gtFine_color.png
      │   │       ├── image_0_gtFine_labelIds.png
      │   │       ├── image_1_gtFine_instanceIds.png
      │   │       ├── image_1_gtFine_color.png
      │   │       ├── image_1_gtFine_labelIds.png
      │   │       ├── ...
      └── imgsFine  # if saving images was requested
          └── leftImg8bit
              ├── <subset_name>
              │   └── <city_name>
              │       ├── image_0_leftImg8bit.png
              │       ├── image_1_leftImg8bit.png
              │       ├── ...
      
      • label_color.txt a file that describes the color for each label
      # label_color.txt example
      # r g b label_name
      0 0 0 background
      0 255 0 tree
      ...
      
      • *_gtFine_color.png class labels encoded by its color.
      • *_gtFine_labelIds.png class labels are encoded by its index.
      • *_gtFine_instanceIds.png class and instance labels encoded by an instance ID. The pixel values encode class and the individual instance: the integer part of a division by 1000 of each ID provides class ID, the remainder is the instance ID. If a certain annotation describes multiple instances, then the pixels have the regular ID of that class

      Cityscapes annotations import

      Uploaded file: a zip archive with the following structure:

      .
      ├── label_color.txt # optional
      └── gtFine
          └── <city_name>
              ├── image_0_gtFine_instanceIds.png
              ├── image_1_gtFine_instanceIds.png
              ├── ...
      

      Creating task with Cityscapes dataset

      Create a task with the labels you need or you can use the labels and colors of the original dataset. To work with the Cityscapes format, you must have a black color label for the background.

      Original Cityscapes color map:

      [
          {"name": "unlabeled", "color": "#000000", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "egovehicle", "color": "#000000", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "rectificationborder", "color": "#000000", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "outofroi", "color": "#000000", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "static", "color": "#000000", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "dynamic", "color": "#6f4a00", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "ground", "color": "#510051", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "road", "color": "#804080", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "sidewalk", "color": "#f423e8", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "parking", "color": "#faaaa0", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "railtrack", "color": "#e6968c", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "building", "color": "#464646", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "wall", "color": "#66669c", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "fence", "color": "#be9999", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "guardrail", "color": "#b4a5b4", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "bridge", "color": "#966464", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "tunnel", "color": "#96785a", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "pole", "color": "#999999", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "polegroup", "color": "#999999", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "trafficlight", "color": "#faaa1e", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "trafficsign", "color": "#dcdc00", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "vegetation", "color": "#6b8e23", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "terrain", "color": "#98fb98", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "sky", "color": "#4682b4", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "person", "color": "#dc143c", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "rider", "color": "#ff0000", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "car", "color": "#00008e", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "truck", "color": "#000046", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "bus", "color": "#003c64", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "caravan", "color": "#00005a", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "trailer", "color": "#00006e", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "train", "color": "#005064", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "motorcycle", "color": "#0000e6", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "bicycle", "color": "#770b20", "attributes": []},
          {"name": "licenseplate", "color": "#00000e", "attributes": []}
      ]
      

      Upload images when creating a task:

      images.zip/
          ├── image_0.jpg
          ├── image_1.jpg
          ├── ...
      

      After creating the task, upload the Cityscapes annotations as described in the previous section.

      2.28.21 - KITTI

      How to export and import data in KITTI format

      The KITTI format is widely used for a range of computer vision tasks related to autonomous driving, including but not limited to 3D object detection, multi-object tracking, and scene flow estimation. Given its special focus on automotive scenes, the KITTI format is generally used with models that are designed or adapted for these types of tasks.

      For more information, see:

      KITTI annotations export

      For export of images:

      • Supported annotations: Bounding Boxes (detection), Polygons (segmentation).
      • Supported attributes:
        • occluded (Available both as a UI option and a separate attribute) Denotes that a major portion of the object within the bounding box is obstructed by another object.
        • truncated (Only applicable to bounding boxes) Must be represented as checkboxes for labels. Suggests that the bounding box does not encompass the entire object; some part is cut off.
        • is_crowd (Only valid for polygons). Should be indicated using checkboxes for labels. Signifies that the annotation encapsulates multiple instances of the same object class.
      • Tracks: Not supported.

      The downloaded file is a .zip archive with the following structure:

      └─ annotations.zip/
          ├── label_colors.txt # list of pairs r g b label_name
          ├── labels.txt # list of labels
          └── default/
              ├── label_2/ # left color camera label files
              │   ├── <image_name_1>.txt
              │   ├── <image_name_2>.txt
              │   └── ...
              ├── instance/ # instance segmentation masks
              │   ├── <image_name_1>.png
              │   ├── <image_name_2>.png
              │   └── ...
              ├── semantic/ # semantic segmentation masks (labels are encoded by its id)
              │   ├── <image_name_1>.png
              │   ├── <image_name_2>.png
              │   └── ...
              └── semantic_rgb/ # semantic segmentation masks (labels are encoded by its color)
                  ├── <image_name_1>.png
                  ├── <image_name_2>.png
                  └── ...
      

      KITTI annotations import

      You can upload KITTI annotations in two ways: rectangles for the detection task and masks for the segmentation task.

      For detection tasks the uploading archive should have the following structure:

      └─ annotations.zip/
          ├── labels.txt # optional, labels list for non-original detection labels
          └── <subset_name>/
              ├── label_2/ # left color camera label files
              │   ├── <image_name_1>.txt
              │   ├── <image_name_2>.txt
              │   └── ...
      

      For segmentation tasks the uploading archive should have the following structure:

      └─ annotations.zip/
          ├── label_colors.txt # optional, color map for non-original segmentation labels
          └── <subset_name>/
              ├── instance/ # instance segmentation masks
              │   ├── <image_name_1>.png
              │   ├── <image_name_2>.png
              │   └── ...
              ├── semantic/ # optional, semantic segmentation masks (labels are encoded by its id)
              │   ├── <image_name_1>.png
              │   ├── <image_name_2>.png
              │   └── ...
              └── semantic_rgb/ # optional, semantic segmentation masks (labels are encoded by its color)
                  ├── <image_name_1>.png
                  ├── <image_name_2>.png
                  └── ...
      

      All annotation files and masks should have structures that are described in the original format specification.

      2.28.22 - LFW

      How to export and import data in LFW format

      The Labeled Faces in the Wild (LFW) format is primarily used for face verification and face recognition tasks. The LFW format is designed to be straightforward and is compatible with a variety of machine learning and deep learning frameworks.

      For more information, see:

      Export LFW annotation

      For export of images:

      • Supported annotations: Tags, Skeletons.

      • Attributes:

        • negative_pairs (should be defined for labels as text): list of image names with mismatched persons.
        • positive_pairs (should be defined for labels as text): list of image names with matched persons.
      • Tracks: Not supported.

      The downloaded file is a .zip archive with the following structure:

      <archive_name>.zip/
          └── images/ # if the option save images was selected
          │    ├── name1/
          │    │   ├── name1_0001.jpg
          │    │   ├── name1_0002.jpg
          │    │   ├── ...
          │    ├── name2/
          │    │   ├── name2_0001.jpg
          │    │   ├── name2_0002.jpg
          │    │   ├── ...
          │    ├── ...
          ├── landmarks.txt
          ├── pairs.txt
          └── people.txt
      

      Import LFW annotation

      The uploaded annotations file should be a zip file with the following structure:

      <archive_name>.zip/
          └── annotations/
              ├── landmarks.txt # list with landmark points for each image
              ├── pairs.txt # list of matched and mismatched pairs of person
              └── people.txt # optional file with a list of persons name
      

      Full information about the content of annotation files is available here

      Example: create task with images and upload LFW annotations into it

      This is one of the possible ways to create a task and add LFW annotations for it.

      • On the task creation page:
        • Add labels that correspond to the names of the persons.
        • For each label define text attributes with names positive_pairs and negative_pairs
        • Add images using zip archive from local repository:
      images.zip/
          ├── name1_0001.jpg
          ├── name1_0002.jpg
          ├── ...
          ├── name1_<N>.jpg
          ├── name2_0001.jpg
          ├── ...
      
      • On the annotation page: Upload annotation -> LFW 1.0 -> choose archive with structure that described in the import section.

      2.29 - XML annotation format

      When you want to download annotations from Computer Vision Annotation Tool (CVAT) you can choose one of several data formats. The document describes XML annotation format. Each format has X.Y version (e.g. 1.0). In general the major version (X) is incremented when the data format has incompatible changes and the minor version (Y) is incremented when the data format is slightly modified (e.g. it has one or several extra fields inside meta information). The document will describe all changes for all versions of XML annotation format.

      Version 1.1

      There are two different formats for images and video tasks at the moment. The both formats have a common part which is described below. From the previous version flipped tag was added. Also original_size tag was added for interpolation mode to specify frame size. In annotation mode each image tag has width and height attributes for the same purpose.

      For what is rle, see Run-length encoding

      <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
      <annotations>
        <version>1.1</version>
        <meta>
          <task>
            <id>Number: id of the task</id>
            <name>String: some task name</name>
            <size>Number: count of frames/images in the task</size>
            <mode>String: interpolation or annotation</mode>
            <overlap>Number: number of overlapped frames between segments</overlap>
            <bugtracker>String: URL on an page which describe the task</bugtracker>
            <flipped>Boolean: were images of the task flipped? (True/False)</flipped>
            <created>String: date when the task was created</created>
            <updated>String: date when the task was updated</updated>
            <labels>
              <label>
                <name>String: name of the label (e.g. car, person)</name>
                <type>String: any, bbox, cuboid, cuboid_3d, ellipse, mask, polygon, polyline, points, skeleton, tag</type>
                <attributes>
                  <attribute>
                    <name>String: attribute name</name>
                    <mutable>Boolean: mutable (allow different values between frames)</mutable>
                    <input_type>String: select, checkbox, radio, number, text</input_type>
                    <default_value>String: default value</default_value>
                    <values>String: possible values, separated by newlines
      ex. value 2
      ex. value 3</values>
                  </attribute>
                </attributes>
                <svg>String: label representation in svg, only for skeletons</svg>
                <parent>String: label parent name, only for skeletons</parent>
              </label>
            </labels>
            <segments>
              <segment>
                <id>Number: id of the segment</id>
                <start>Number: first frame</start>
                <stop>Number: last frame</stop>
                <url>String: URL (e.g. http://cvat.example.com/?id=213)</url>
              </segment>
            </segments>
            <owner>
              <username>String: the author of the task</username>
              <email>String: email of the author</email>
            </owner>
            <original_size>
              <width>Number: frame width</width>
              <height>Number: frame height</height>
            </original_size>
          </task>
          <dumped>String: date when the annotation was dumped</dumped>
        </meta>
        ...
      </annotations>
      

      Annotation

      Below you can find description of the data format for images tasks. On each image it is possible to have many different objects. Each object can have multiple attributes. If an annotation task is created with z_order flag then each object will have z_order attribute which is used to draw objects properly when they are intersected (if z_order is bigger the object is closer to camera). In previous versions of the format only box shape was available. In later releases mask, polygon, polyline, points, skeletons and tags were added. Please see below for more details:

      <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
      <annotations>
        ...
        <image id="Number: id of the image (the index in lexical order of images)" name="String: path to the image"
          width="Number: image width" height="Number: image height">
          <box label="String: the associated label" xtl="Number: float" ytl="Number: float" xbr="Number: float" ybr="Number: float" occluded="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True" z_order="Number: z-order of the object">
            <attribute name="String: an attribute name">String: the attribute value</attribute>
            ...
          </box>
          <polygon label="String: the associated label" points="x0,y0;x1,y1;..." occluded="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True"
          z_order="Number: z-order of the object">
            <attribute name="String: an attribute name">String: the attribute value</attribute>
            ...
          </polygon>
          <polyline label="String: the associated label" points="x0,y0;x1,y1;..." occluded="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True"
          z_order="Number: z-order of the object">
            <attribute name="String: an attribute name">String: the attribute value</attribute>
            ...
          </polyline>
          <polyline label="String: the associated label" points="x0,y0;x1,y1;..." occluded="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True"
          z_order="Number: z-order of the object">
            <attribute name="String: an attribute name">String: the attribute value</attribute>
            ...
          </polyline>
          <points label="String: the associated label" points="x0,y0;x1,y1;..." occluded="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True"
          z_order="Number: z-order of the object">
            <attribute name="String: an attribute name">String: the attribute value</attribute>
            ...
          </points>
          <tag label="String: the associated label" source="manual or auto">
            <attribute name="String: an attribute name">String: the attribute value</attribute>
            ...
          </tag>
          <skeleton label="String: the associated label" z_order="Number: z-order of the object">
            <points label="String: the associated label" occluded="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True" outside="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True" points="x0,y0;x1,y1">
              <attribute name="String: an attribute name">String: the attribute value</attribute>
            </points>
            ...
            <attribute name="String: an attribute name">String: the attribute value</attribute>
            ...
          </skeleton>
          <mask label="String: the associated label" source="manual or auto" occluded="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True" rle="RLE mask" left="Number: left coordinate of the image where the mask begins" top="Number: top coordinate of the image where the mask begins" width="Number: width of the mask" height="Number: height of the mask" z_order="Number: z-order of the object">
          </mask>
          ...
        </image>
        ...
      </annotations>
      

      Example:

      <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
      <annotations>
        <version>1.1</version>
        <meta>
          <task>
            <id>4</id>
            <name>segmentation</name>
            <size>27</size>
            <mode>annotation</mode>
            <overlap>0</overlap>
            <bugtracker></bugtracker>
            <flipped>False</flipped>
            <created>2018-09-25 11:34:24.617558+03:00</created>
            <updated>2018-09-25 11:38:27.301183+03:00</updated>
            <labels>
              <label>
                <name>car</name>
                <attributes>
                </attributes>
              </label>
              <label>
                <name>traffic_line</name>
                <attributes>
                </attributes>
              </label>
              <label>
                <name>wheel</name>
                <attributes>
                </attributes>
              </label>
              <label>
                <name>plate</name>
                <attributes>
                </attributes>
              </label>
              <label>
                <name>s1</name>
                <type>skeleton</type>
                <attributes>
                </attributes>
                <svg>&lt;line x1="36.87290954589844" y1="47.732025146484375" x2="86.87290954589844" y2="10.775501251220703" stroke="black" data-type="edge" data-node-from="2" stroke-width="0.5" data-node-to="3"&gt;&lt;/line&gt;&lt;line x1="25.167224884033203" y1="22.64841079711914" x2="36.87290954589844" y2="47.732025146484375" stroke="black" data-type="edge" data-node-from="1" stroke-width="0.5" data-node-to="2"&gt;&lt;/line&gt;&lt;circle r="1.5" stroke="black" fill="#b3b3b3" cx="25.167224884033203" cy="22.64841079711914" stroke-width="0.1" data-type="element node" data-element-id="1" data-node-id="1" data-label-name="1"&gt;&lt;/circle&gt;&lt;circle r="1.5" stroke="black" fill="#b3b3b3" cx="36.87290954589844" cy="47.732025146484375" stroke-width="0.1" data-type="element node" data-element-id="2" data-node-id="2" data-label-name="2"&gt;&lt;/circle&gt;&lt;circle r="1.5" stroke="black" fill="#b3b3b3" cx="86.87290954589844" cy="10.775501251220703" stroke-width="0.1" data-type="element node" data-element-id="3" data-node-id="3" data-label-name="3"&gt;&lt;/circle&gt;</svg>
              </label>
              <label>
                <name>1</name>
                <type>points</type>
                <attributes>
                </attributes>
                <parent>s1</parent>
              </label>
              <label>
                <name>2</name>
                <type>points</type>
                <attributes>
                </attributes>
                <parent>s1</parent>
              </label>
              <label>
                <name>3</name>
                <type>points</type>
                <attributes>
                </attributes>
                <parent>s1</parent>
              </label>
            </labels>
            <segments>
              <segment>
                <id>4</id>
                <start>0</start>
                <stop>26</stop>
                <url>http://localhost:8080/?id=4</url>
              </segment>
            </segments>
            <owner>
              <username>admin</username>
              <email></email>
            </owner>
          </task>
          <dumped>2018-09-25 11:38:28.799808+03:00</dumped>
        </meta>
        <image id="0" name="filename000.jpg" width="1600" height="1200">
          <box label="plate" xtl="797.33" ytl="870.92" xbr="965.52" ybr="928.94" occluded="0" z_order="4">
          </box>
          <polygon label="car" points="561.30,916.23;561.30,842.77;554.72,761.63;553.62,716.67;565.68,677.20;577.74,566.45;547.04,559.87;536.08,542.33;528.40,520.40;541.56,512.72;559.10,509.43;582.13,506.14;588.71,464.48;583.23,448.03;587.61,434.87;594.19,431.58;609.54,399.78;633.66,369.08;676.43,294.52;695.07,279.17;703.84,279.17;735.64,268.20;817.88,264.91;923.14,266.01;997.70,274.78;1047.04,283.55;1063.49,289.04;1090.90,330.70;1111.74,371.27;1135.86,397.59;1147.92,428.29;1155.60,435.97;1157.79,451.32;1156.69,462.28;1159.98,491.89;1163.27,522.59;1173.14,513.82;1199.46,516.01;1224.68,521.49;1225.77,544.52;1207.13,568.64;1181.91,576.32;1178.62,582.90;1177.53,619.08;1186.30,680.48;1199.46,711.19;1206.03,733.12;1203.84,760.53;1197.26,818.64;1199.46,840.57;1203.84,908.56;1192.88,930.49;1184.10,939.26;1162.17,944.74;1139.15,960.09;1058.01,976.54;1028.40,969.96;1002.09,972.15;931.91,974.35;844.19,972.15;772.92,972.15;729.06,967.77;713.71,971.06;685.20,973.25;659.98,968.86;644.63,984.21;623.80,983.12;588.71,985.31;560.20,966.67" occluded="0" z_order="1">
          </polygon>
          <polyline label="traffic_line" points="462.10,0.00;126.80,1200.00" occluded="0" z_order="3">
          </polyline>
          <polyline label="traffic_line" points="1212.40,0.00;1568.66,1200.00" occluded="0" z_order="2">
          </polyline>
          <points label="wheel" points="574.90,939.48;1170.16,907.90;1130.69,445.26;600.16,459.48" occluded="0" z_order="5">
          </points>
          <tag label="good_frame" source="manual">
          </tag>
          <skeleton label="s1" source="manual" z_order="0">
            <points label="1" occluded="0" source="manual" outside="0" points="54.47,94.81">
            </points>
            <points label="2" occluded="0" source="manual" outside="0" points="68.02,162.34">
            </points>
            <points label="3" occluded="0" source="manual" outside="0" points="125.87,62.85">
            </points>
          </skeleton>
          <mask label="car" source="manual" occluded="0" rle="3, 5, 7, 7, 5, 9, 3, 11, 2, 11, 2, 12, 1, 12, 1, 26, 1, 12, 1, 12, 2, 11, 3, 9, 5, 7, 7, 5, 3" left="707" top="888" width="13" height="15" z_order="0">
          </mask>
        </image>
      </annotations>
      

      Interpolation

      Below you can find description of the data format for video tasks. The annotation contains tracks. Each track corresponds to an object which can be presented on multiple frames. The same object cannot be presented on the same frame in multiple locations. Each location of the object can have multiple attributes even if an attribute is immutable for the object it will be cloned for each location (a known redundancy).

      <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
      <annotations>
        ...
        <track id="Number: id of the track (doesn't have any special meeting)" label="String: the associated label" source="manual or auto">
          <box frame="Number: frame" xtl="Number: float" ytl="Number: float" xbr="Number: float" ybr="Number: float" outside="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True" occluded="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True" keyframe="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True">
            <attribute name="String: an attribute name">String: the attribute value</attribute>
            ...
          </box>
          <polygon frame="Number: frame" points="x0,y0;x1,y1;..." outside="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True" occluded="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True" keyframe="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True">
            <attribute name="String: an attribute name">String: the attribute value</attribute>
          </polygon>
          <polyline frame="Number: frame" points="x0,y0;x1,y1;..." outside="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True" occluded="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True" keyframe="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True">
            <attribute name="String: an attribute name">String: the attribute value</attribute>
          </polyline>
          <points frame="Number: frame" points="x0,y0;x1,y1;..." outside="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True" occluded="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True" keyframe="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True">
            <attribute name="String: an attribute name">String: the attribute value</attribute>
          </points>
          <mask frame="Number: frame" outside="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True" occluded="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True" rle="RLE mask" left="Number: left coordinate of the image where the mask begins" top="Number: top coordinate of the image where the mask begins" width="Number: width of the mask" height="Number: height of the mask" z_order="Number: z-order of the object">
          </mask>
          ...
        </track>
        <track id="Number: id of the track (doesn't have any special meeting)" label="String: the associated label" source="manual or auto">
          <skeleton frame="Number: frame" keyframe="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True">
            <points label="String: the associated label" outside="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True" occluded="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True" keyframe="Number: 0 - False, 1 - True" points="x0,y0;x1,y1">
            </points>
            ...
          </skeleton>
          ...
        </track>
        ...
      </annotations>
      

      Example:

      <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
      <annotations>
        <version>1.1</version>
        <meta>
          <task>
            <id>5</id>
            <name>interpolation</name>
            <size>4620</size>
            <mode>interpolation</mode>
            <overlap>5</overlap>
            <bugtracker></bugtracker>
            <flipped>False</flipped>
            <created>2018-09-25 12:32:09.868194+03:00</created>
            <updated>2018-09-25 16:05:05.619841+03:00</updated>
            <labels>
              <label>
                <name>person</name>
                <attributes>
                </attributes>
              </label>
              <label>
                <name>car</name>
                <attributes>
                </attributes>
              </label>
              <label>
                <name>s1</name>
                <type>skeleton</type>
                <attributes>
                </attributes>
                <svg>&lt;line x1="36.87290954589844" y1="47.732025146484375" x2="86.87290954589844" y2="10.775501251220703" stroke="black" data-type="edge" data-node-from="2" stroke-width="0.5" data-node-to="3"&gt;&lt;/line&gt;&lt;line x1="25.167224884033203" y1="22.64841079711914" x2="36.87290954589844" y2="47.732025146484375" stroke="black" data-type="edge" data-node-from="1" stroke-width="0.5" data-node-to="2"&gt;&lt;/line&gt;&lt;circle r="1.5" stroke="black" fill="#b3b3b3" cx="25.167224884033203" cy="22.64841079711914" stroke-width="0.1" data-type="element node" data-element-id="1" data-node-id="1" data-label-name="1"&gt;&lt;/circle&gt;&lt;circle r="1.5" stroke="black" fill="#b3b3b3" cx="36.87290954589844" cy="47.732025146484375" stroke-width="0.1" data-type="element node" data-element-id="2" data-node-id="2" data-label-name="2"&gt;&lt;/circle&gt;&lt;circle r="1.5" stroke="black" fill="#b3b3b3" cx="86.87290954589844" cy="10.775501251220703" stroke-width="0.1" data-type="element node" data-element-id="3" data-node-id="3" data-label-name="3"&gt;&lt;/circle&gt;</svg>
              </label>
              <label>
                <name>1</name>
                <type>points</type>
                <attributes>
                </attributes>
                <parent>s1</parent>
              </label>
              <label>
                <name>2</name>
                <type>points</type>
                <attributes>
                </attributes>
                <parent>s1</parent>
              </label>
              <label>
                <name>3</name>
                <type>points</type>
                <attributes>
                </attributes>
                <parent>s1</parent>
              </label>
            </labels>
            <segments>
              <segment>
                <id>5</id>
                <start>0</start>
                <stop>4619</stop>
                <url>http://localhost:8080/?id=5</url>
              </segment>
            </segments>
            <owner>
              <username>admin</username>
              <email></email>
            </owner>
            <original_size>
              <width>640</width>
              <height>480</height>
            </original_size>
          </task>
          <dumped>2018-09-25 16:05:07.134046+03:00</dumped>
        </meta>
        <track id="0" label="car">
          <polygon frame="0" points="324.79,213.16;323.74,227.90;347.42,237.37;371.11,217.37;350.05,190.00;318.47,191.58" outside="0" occluded="0" keyframe="1">
          </polygon>
          <polygon frame="1" points="324.79,213.16;323.74,227.90;347.42,237.37;371.11,217.37;350.05,190.00;318.47,191.58" outside="1" occluded="0" keyframe="1">
          </polygon>
          <polygon frame="6" points="305.32,237.90;312.16,207.90;352.69,206.32;355.32,233.16;331.11,254.74" outside="0" occluded="0" keyframe="1">
          </polygon>
          <polygon frame="7" points="305.32,237.90;312.16,207.90;352.69,206.32;355.32,233.16;331.11,254.74" outside="1" occluded="0" keyframe="1">
          </polygon>
          <polygon frame="13" points="313.74,233.16;331.11,220.00;359.53,243.16;333.21,283.16;287.95,274.74" outside="0" occluded="0" keyframe="1">
          </polygon>
          <polygon frame="14" points="313.74,233.16;331.11,220.00;359.53,243.16;333.21,283.16;287.95,274.74" outside="1" occluded="0" keyframe="1">
          </polygon>
        </track>
        <track id="1" label="s1" source="manual">
          <skeleton frame="0" keyframe="1" z_order="0">
            <points label="1" outside="0" occluded="0" keyframe="1" points="112.07,258.59">
            </points>
            <points label="2" outside="0" occluded="0" keyframe="1" points="127.87,333.23">
            </points>
            <points label="3" outside="0" occluded="0" keyframe="1" points="195.37,223.27">
            </points>
          </skeleton>
          <skeleton frame="1" keyframe="1" z_order="0">
            <points label="1" outside="1" occluded="0" keyframe="1" points="112.07,258.59">
            </points>
            <points label="2" outside="1" occluded="0" keyframe="1" points="127.87,333.23">
            </points>
            <points label="3" outside="1" occluded="0" keyframe="1" points="195.37,223.27">
            </points>
          </skeleton>
          <skeleton frame="6" keyframe="1" z_order="0">
            <points label="1" outside="0" occluded="0" keyframe="0" points="120.07,270.59">
            </points>
            <points label="2" outside="0" occluded="0" keyframe="0" points="140.87,350.23">
            </points>
            <points label="3" outside="0" occluded="0" keyframe="0" points="210.37,260.27">
            </points>
          </skeleton>
          <skeleton frame="7" keyframe="1" z_order="0">
            <points label="1" outside="1" occluded="0" keyframe="1" points="120.07,270.59">
            </points>
            <points label="2" outside="1" occluded="0" keyframe="1" points="140.87,350.23">
            </points>
            <points label="3" outside="1" occluded="0" keyframe="1" points="210.37,260.27">
            </points>
          </skeleton>
          <skeleton frame="13" keyframe="0" z_order="0">
            <points label="1" outside="0" occluded="0" keyframe="0" points="112.07,258.59">
            </points>
            <points label="2" outside="0" occluded="0" keyframe="0" points="127.87,333.23">
            </points>
            <points label="3" outside="0" occluded="0" keyframe="0" points="195.37,223.27">
            </points>
          </skeleton>
          <skeleton frame="14" keyframe="1" z_order="0">
            <points label="1" outside="1" occluded="0" keyframe="1" points="112.07,258.59">
            </points>
            <points label="2" outside="1" occluded="0" keyframe="1" points="127.87,333.23">
            </points>
            <points label="3" outside="1" occluded="0" keyframe="1" points="195.37,223.27">
            </points>
          </skeleton>
        </track>
      </annotations>
      

      2.30 - Shortcuts

      List of available keyboard shortcuts and notes about their customization.

      CVAT provides a wide range of customizable shortcuts, with many UI elements offering shortcut hints when hovered over with the mouse.

      These shortcuts are organized by scopes. Some are global, meaning they work across the entire application, while others are specific to certain sections or workspaces. This approach allows reusing the same shortcuts in different scopes, depending on whether they might conflict. For example, global shortcuts must be unique since they apply across all pages and workspaces. However, similar shortcuts can be used in different workspaces, like having the same shortcuts in both the Standard Workspace and the Standard 3D Workspace, as these two do not coexist.

      Scope Shortcut Conflicts
      Global Must be unique across all scopes, as they apply universally.
      Annotation Page Must be unique across all scopes, except Labels Editor.
      Standard Workspace Must be unique across itself, Annotation Page and Global Scope.
      Standard 3D Workspace Must be unique across itself, Annotation Page and Global Scope.
      Attribute Annotation Workspace Must be unique across itself, Annotation Page and Global Scope.
      Review Workspace Must be unique across itself, Annotation Page and Global Scope.
      Tag Annotation Workspace Must be unique across itself, Annotation Page and Global Scope.
      Control Sidebar Must be unique across itself, all workspaces, Annotation Page and Global Scope.
      Objects Sidebar Must be unique across itself, all workspaces, Annotation Page and Global Scope.
      Labels Editor Must be unique across itself and Global Scope.

      Shortcuts Customization

      You can customize shortcuts in CVAT settings.

      • Open Settings:

      • Go to the Shortcuts tab:

      • You’ll see the shortcuts customization menu:

      • As it can be seen there is a warning, that some shortcuts are reserved by a browser and cannot be overridden in CVAT, there isn’t a specific list available for such combinations, but shortcuts such as ctrl + tab (switching tabs) or ctrl + w (closing tabs) etc, are reserved by the browser and shortcuts such as alt + f4 (closing the window) are usually reserved by your operating system.

      • All sections collapsable, so you can easily navigate through the list of shortcuts. Here is the Global scope expanded:

      • To add a custom shortcut all you have to do is to click the input field and start pressing the sequence you want to assign to the action. As an example f3 has been set here for Show Shortcuts along with f1:

      • Shortcuts can be any combination of modifiers (ctrl, shift or alt) and up to one non-modifier key e.g. ctrl+shift+f1 etc.

      • If you try to add a shortcut that is already in use, you will get a warning message:

      • If pressed cancel it will remain the same otherwise the conflicting shortcut will be unset.

      • If you want to reset all the shortcuts to default, you can do so by clicking the Restore Defaults button at the top of the shortcut settings.

      2.31 - Filter

      Guide to using the Filter feature in CVAT.

      There are some reasons to use the feature:

      1. When you use a filter, objects that don’t match the filter will be hidden.
      2. The fast navigation between frames which have an object of interest. Use the Left Arrow / Right Arrow keys for this purpose or customize the UI buttons by right-clicking and select switching by filter. If there are no objects which correspond to the filter, you will go to the previous / next frame which contains any annotated objects.

      To apply filters you need to click on the button on the top panel.

      Create a filter

      It will open a window for filter input. Here you will find two buttons: Add rule and Add group.

      Rules

      The Add rule button adds a rule for objects display. A rule may use the following properties:

      Supported properties for annotation

      Properties Supported values Description
      Label all the label names that are in the task label name
      Type shape, track or tag type of object
      Shape all shape types type of shape
      Occluded true or false occluded (read more)
      Width number of px or field shape width
      Height number of px or field shape height
      ServerID number or field ID of the object on the server
      (You can find out by forming a link to the object through the Action menu)
      ObjectID number or field ID of the object in your client
      (indicated on the objects sidebar)
      Attributes some other fields including attributes with a
      similar type or a specific attribute value
      any fields specified by a label

      Supported operators for properties

      == - Equally; != - Not equal; > - More; >= - More or equal; < - Less; <= - Less or equal;

      Any in; Not in - these operators allow you to set multiple values in one rule;

      Is empty; is not empty – these operators don’t require to input a value.

      Between; Not between – these operators allow you to choose a range between two values.

      Like - this operator indicate that the property must contain a value.

      Starts with; Ends with - filter by beginning or end.

      Some properties support two types of values that you can choose:

      You can add multiple rules, to do so click the add rule button and set another rule. Once you’ve set a new rule, you’ll be able to choose which operator they will be connected by: And or Or.

      All subsequent rules will be joined by the chosen operator. Click Submit to apply the filter or if you want multiple rules to be connected by different operators, use groups.

      Groups

      To add a group, click the Add group button. Inside the group you can create rules or groups.

      If there is more than one rule in the group, they can be connected by And or Or operators. The rule group will work as well as a separate rule outside the group and will be joined by an operator outside the group. You can create groups within other groups, to do so you need to click the add group button within the group.

      You can move rules and groups. To move the rule or group, drag it by the button. To remove the rule or group, click on the Delete button.

      If you activate the Not button, objects that don’t match the group will be filtered out. Click Submit to apply the filter. The Cancel button undoes the filter. The Clear filter button removes the filter.

      Once applied filter automatically appears in Recent used list. Maximum length of the list is 10.


      Sort and filter lists

      On the projects, task list on the project page, tasks, jobs, and cloud storage pages, you can use sorting and filters.

      The applied filter and sorting will be displayed in the URL of your browser, Thus, you can share the page with sorting and filter applied.

      Sort by

      You can sort by the following parameters:

      • Jobs list: ID, assignee, updated date, stage, state, task ID, project ID, task name, project name.
      • Tasks list or tasks list on project page: ID, owner, status, assignee, updated date, subset, mode, dimension, project ID, name, project name.
      • Projects list: ID, assignee, owner, status, name, updated date.
      • Cloud storages list: ID, provider type, updated date, display name, resource, credentials, owner, description.

      To apply sorting, drag the parameter to the top area above the horizontal bar. The parameters below the horizontal line will not be applied. By moving the parameters you can change the priority, first of all sorting will occur according to the parameters that are above.

      Pressing the Sort button switches Ascending sort/Descending sort.

      Quick filters

      Quick Filters contain several frequently used filters:

      • Assigned to me - show only those projects, tasks or jobs that are assigned to you.
      • Owned by me - show only those projects or tasks that are owned by you.
      • Not completed - show only those projects, tasks or jobs that have a status other than completed.
      • AWS storages - show only AWS cloud storages
      • Azure storages - show only Azure cloud storages
      • Google cloud storages - show only Google cloud storages

      Date and time selection

      When creating a Last updated rule, you can select the date and time by using the selection window.

      You can select the year and month using the arrows or by clicking on the year and month. To select a day, click on it in the calendar, To select the time, you can select the hours and minutes using the scrolling list. Or you can select the current date and time by clicking the Now button. To apply, click Ok.

      2.32 - Contextual images

      Contextual images of the task

      Contextual images are additional images that provide context or additional information related to the primary image.

      Use them to add extra contextual about the object to improve the accuracy of annotation.

      Contextual images are available for 2D and 3D tasks.

      See:

      Folder structure

      To add contextual images to the task, you need to organize the images folder.

      Before uploading the archive to CVAT, do the following:

      1. In the folder with the images for annotation, create a folder: related_images.
      2. Add to the related_images a subfolder with the same name as the primary image to which it should be linked.
      3. Place the contextual image(s) within the subfolder created in step 2.
      4. Add folder to the archive.
      5. Create task.

      Data format

      Example file structure for 2D and 3D tasks:

        root_directory
          image_1_to_be_annotated.jpg
          image_2_to_be_annotated.jpg
          related_images/
            image_1_to_be_annotated_jpg/
              context_image_for_image_1.jpg
            image_2_to_be_annotated_jpg/
              context_image_for_image_2.jpg
           subdirectory_example/
              image_3_to_be_annotated.jpg
               related_images/
                image_3_to_be_annotated_jpg/
                   context_image_for_image_3.jpg
       root_directory
          pointcloud/
            image_1_to_be_annotated.pcd
            image_2_to_be_annotated.pcd
          related_images/
            image_1_to_be_annotated_pcd/
              context_image_for_image_1.jpg
            image_2_to_be_annotated_pcd/
              context_image_for_image_2.jpg
       /any_directory
          pointcloud.pcd
          pointcloud.jpg
      /any_other_directory
          /any_subdirectory
              pointcloud.pcd
              pointcloud.png
       /image_00
          /data
              /0000000000.png
              /0000000001.png
              /0000000002.png
              /0000000003.png
      /image_01
          /data
              /0000000000.png
              /0000000001.png
              /0000000002.png
              /0000000003.png
      /image_02
          /data
              /0000000000.png
              /0000000001.png
              /0000000002.png
              /0000000003.png
      /image_N
          /data
              /0000000000.png
              /0000000001.png
              /0000000002.png
              /0000000003.png
      /velodyne_points
          /data
              /0000000000.bin
              /0000000001.bin
              /0000000002.bin
              /0000000003.bin
      • For KITTI: image_00, image_01, image_02, image_N, (where N is any number <= 12) are context images.
      • For 3D option 3: a regular image file placed near a .pcd file with the same name is considered to be a context image.

      For more general information about 3D data formats, see 3D data formats.

      Contextual images

      The maximum amount of contextual images is twelve.

      By default they will be positioned on the right side of the main image.

      Note: By default, only three contextual images will be visible.

      contex_images_1

      When you add contextual images to the set, small toolbar will appear on the top of the screen, with the following elements:

      Element Description
      contex_images_4 Fit views. Click to restore the layout to its original appearance.

      If you’ve expanded any images in the layout, they will returned to their original size.

      This won’t affect the number of context images on the screen.

      contex_images_5 Add new image. Click to add context image to the layout.
      contex_images_6 Reload layout. Click to reload layout to the default view.

      Note, that this action can change the number of context images resetting them back to three.

      Each context image has the following elements:

      contex_images_2

      Element Description
      1 Full screen. Click to expand the contextual image in to the full screen mode.

      Click again to revert contextual image to windowed mode.

      2 Move contextual image. Hold and move contextual image to the other place on the screen.

      contex_images_3

      3 Name. Unique contextual image name
      4 Select contextual image. Click to open a horisontal listview of all available contextual images.

      Click on one to select.

      5 Close. Click to remove image from contextual images menu.
      6 Extend Hold and pull to extend the image.

      2.33 - Shape grouping

      Grouping multiple shapes during annotation.

      This feature allows us to group several shapes.

      You may use the Group Shapes button or shortcuts:

      • G — start selection / end selection in group mode
      • Esc — close group mode
      • Shift+G — reset group for selected shapes

      You may select shapes clicking on them or selecting an area.

      Grouped shapes will have group_id filed in dumped annotation.

      Also you may switch color distribution from an instance (default) to a group. You have to switch Color By Group checkbox for that.

      Shapes that don’t have group_id, will be highlighted in white.

      Shapes grouping video tutorial

      2.34 - Dataset Manifest

      Overview

      When we create a new task in CVAT, we need to specify where to get the input data from. CVAT allows to use different data sources, including local file uploads, a mounted file share on the server, cloud storages and remote URLs. In some cases CVAT needs to have extra information about the input data. This information can be provided in Dataset manifest files. They are mainly used when working with cloud storages to reduce the amount of network traffic used and speed up the task creation process. However, they can also be used in other cases, which will be explained below.

      A dataset manifest file is a text file in the JSONL format. These files can be created automatically with the special command-line tool, or manually, following the manifest file format specification.

      How and when to use manifest files

      Manifest files can be used in the following cases:

      • A video file or a set of images is used as the data source and the caching mode is enabled. Read more
      • The data is located in a cloud storage. Read more
      • The predefined file sorting method is specified. Read more

      The predefined sorting method

      Independently of the file source being used, when the predefined sorting method is selected in the task configuration, the source files will be ordered according to the .jsonl manifest file, if it is found in the input list of files. If a manifest is not found, the order provided in the input file list is used.

      For image archives (e.g. .zip), a manifest file (*.jsonl) is required when using the predefined file ordering. A manifest file must be provided next to the archive in the input list of files, it must not be inside the archive.

      If there are multiple manifest files in the input file list, an error will be raised.

      How to generate manifest files

      CVAT provides a dedicated Python tool to generate manifest files. The source code can be found here.

      Using the tool is the recommended way to create manifest files for you data. The data must be available locally to the tool to generate manifest.

      Usage

      usage: create.py [-h] [--force] [--output-dir .] source
      
      positional arguments:
        source                Source paths
      
      optional arguments:
        -h, --help            show this help message and exit
        --force               Use this flag to prepare the manifest file for video data
                              if by default the video does not meet the requirements
                              and a manifest file is not prepared
        --output-dir OUTPUT_DIR
                              Directory where the manifest file will be saved
      

      Use the script from a Docker image

      This is the recommended way to use the tool.

      The script can be used from the cvat/server image:

      docker run -it --rm -u "$(id -u)":"$(id -g)" \
        -v "${PWD}":"/local" \
        --entrypoint python3 \
        cvat/server \
        utils/dataset_manifest/create.py --output-dir /local /local/<path/to/sources>
      

      Make sure to adapt the command to your file locations.

      Use the script directly

      Ubuntu 20.04

      Install dependencies:

      # General
      sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get --no-install-recommends install -y \
          python3-dev python3-pip python3-venv pkg-config
      
      # Library components
      sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends -y \
          libavformat-dev libavcodec-dev libavdevice-dev \
          libavutil-dev libswscale-dev libswresample-dev libavfilter-dev
      

      Create an environment and install the necessary python modules:

      python3 -m venv .env
      . .env/bin/activate
      pip install -U pip
      pip install -r utils/dataset_manifest/requirements.in
      

      Please note that if used with video this way, the results may be different from what would the server decode. It is related to the ffmpeg library version. For this reason, using the Docker-based version of the tool is recommended.

      Examples

      Create a dataset manifest in the current directory with video which contains enough keyframes:

      python utils/dataset_manifest/create.py ~/Documents/video.mp4
      

      Create a dataset manifest with video which does not contain enough keyframes:

      python utils/dataset_manifest/create.py --force --output-dir ~/Documents ~/Documents/video.mp4
      

      Create a dataset manifest with images:

      python utils/dataset_manifest/create.py --output-dir ~/Documents ~/Documents/images/
      

      Create a dataset manifest with pattern (may be used *, ?, []):

      python utils/dataset_manifest/create.py --output-dir ~/Documents "/home/${USER}/Documents/**/image*.jpeg"
      

      Create a dataset manifest using Docker image:

      docker run -it --rm -u "$(id -u)":"$(id -g)" \
        -v ~/Documents/data/:${HOME}/manifest/:rw \
        --entrypoint '/usr/bin/bash' \
        cvat/server \
        utils/dataset_manifest/create.py --output-dir ~/manifest/ ~/manifest/images/
      

      File format

      The dataset manifest files are text files in JSONL format. These files have 2 sub-formats: for video and for images and 3d data.

      Each top-level entry enclosed in curly braces must use 1 string, no empty strings is allowed. The formatting in the descriptions below is only for demonstration.

      Dataset manifest for video

      The file describes a single video.

      pts - time at which the frame should be shown to the user checksum - md5 hash sum for the specific image/frame decoded

      { "version": <string, version id> }
      { "type": "video" }
      { "properties": {
        "name": <string, filename>,
        "resolution": [<int, width>, <int, height>],
        "length": <int, frame count>
      }}
      {
        "number": <int, frame number>,
        "pts": <int, frame pts>,
        "checksum": <string, md5 frame hash>
      } (repeatable)
      

      Dataset manifest for images and other data types

      The file describes an ordered set of images and 3d point clouds.

      name - file basename and leading directories from the dataset root checksum - md5 hash sum for the specific image/frame decoded

      { "version": <string, version id> }
      { "type": "images" }
      {
        "name": <string, image filename>,
        "extension": <string, . + file extension>,
        "width": <int, width>,
        "height": <int, height>,
        "meta": <dict, optional>,
        "checksum": <string, md5 hash, optional>
      } (repeatable)
      

      Example files

      Manifest for a video

      {"version":"1.0"}
      {"type":"video"}
      {"properties":{"name":"video.mp4","resolution":[1280,720],"length":778}}
      {"number":0,"pts":0,"checksum":"17bb40d76887b56fe8213c6fded3d540"}
      {"number":135,"pts":486000,"checksum":"9da9b4d42c1206d71bf17a7070a05847"}
      {"number":270,"pts":972000,"checksum":"a1c3a61814f9b58b00a795fa18bb6d3e"}
      {"number":405,"pts":1458000,"checksum":"18c0803b3cc1aa62ac75b112439d2b62"}
      {"number":540,"pts":1944000,"checksum":"4551ecea0f80e95a6c32c32e70cac59e"}
      {"number":675,"pts":2430000,"checksum":"0e72faf67e5218c70b506445ac91cdd7"}
      

      Manifest for a dataset with images

      {"version":"1.0"}
      {"type":"images"}
      {"name":"image1","extension":".jpg","width":720,"height":405,"meta":{"related_images":[]},"checksum":"548918ec4b56132a5cff1d4acabe9947"}
      {"name":"image2","extension":".jpg","width":183,"height":275,"meta":{"related_images":[]},"checksum":"4b4eefd03cc6a45c1c068b98477fb639"}
      {"name":"image3","extension":".jpg","width":301,"height":167,"meta":{"related_images":[]},"checksum":"0e454a6f4a13d56c82890c98be063663"}
      

      2.35 - Data preparation on the fly

      Description

      Data on the fly processing is a way of working with data, the main idea of which is as follows: when creating a task, the minimum necessary meta information is collected. This meta information allows in the future to create necessary chunks when receiving a request from a client.

      Generated chunks are stored in a cache of the limited size with a policy of evicting less popular items.

      When a request is received from a client, the required chunk is searched for in the cache. If the chunk does not exist yet, it is created using prepared meta information and then put into the cache.

      This method of working with data allows:

      • reduce the task creation time.
      • store data in a cache of the limited size with a policy of evicting less popular items.

      Unfortunately, this method has several drawbacks:

      • The first access to the data will take more time.
      • It will not work for some videos, even if they have a valid manifest file. If there are not enough keyframes in the video for smooth video decoding, the task data chunks will be created with the default method, i.e. during the task creation.
      • If the data has not been cached yet, and is not reachable during the access time, it cannot be retrieved.

      How to use

      To enable or disable this feature for a new task, use the Use Cache toggle in the task configuration.

      Uploading a manifest with data

      When creating a task, you can upload a manifest.jsonl file along with the video or dataset with images. You can see how to prepare it here.

      2.36 - Serverless tutorial

      Introduction

      Leveraging the power of computers to solve daily routine problems, fix mistakes, and find information has become second nature. It is therefore natural to use computing power in annotating datasets. There are multiple publicly available DL models for classification, object detection, and semantic segmentation which can be used for data annotation. Whilst some of these publicly available DL models can be found on CVAT, it is relatively simple to integrate your privately trained ML/DL model into CVAT.

      With the imperfection of the world, alongside the unavailability of a silver bullet that can solve all our problems; publicly available DL models cannot be used when we want to detect niche or specific objects on which these publicly available models were not trained. As annotation requirements can be sometimes strict, automatically annotated objects cannot be accepted as it is, and it is easier to annotate them from scratch. With these limitations in mind, a DL solution that can perfectly annotate 50% of your data equates to reducing manual annotation by half.

      Since we know DL models can help us to annotate faster, how then do we use them? In CVAT all such DL models are implemented as serverless functions using the Nuclio serverless platform. There are multiple implemented functions that can be found in the serverless directory such as Mask RCNN, Faster RCNN, SiamMask, Inside Outside Guidance, Deep Extreme Cut, etc. Follow the installation guide to build and deploy these serverless functions. See the user guide to understand how to use these functions in the UI to automatically annotate data.

      What is a serverless function and why is it used for automatic annotation in CVAT? Let’s assume that you have a DL model and want to use it for AI-assisted annotation. The naive approach is to implement a Python script which uses the DL model to prepare a file with annotations in a public format like MS COCO or Pascal VOC. After that you can upload the annotation file into CVAT. It works but it is not user-friendly. How to make CVAT run the script for you?

      You can pack the script with your DL model into a container which provides a standard interface for interacting with it. One way to do that is to use the function as a service approach. Your script becomes a function inside cloud infrastructure which can be called over HTTP. The Nuclio serverless platform helps us to implement and manage such functions.

      CVAT supports Nuclio out of the box if it is built properly. See the installation guide for instructions. Thus if you deploy a serverless function, the CVAT server can see it and call it with appropriate arguments. Of course there are some tricks how to create serverless functions for CVAT and we will discuss them in next sections of the tutorial.

      Using builtin DL models in practice

      In the tutorial it is assumed that you already have the cloned CVAT GitHub repo. To build CVAT with serverless support you need to run docker compose command with specific configuration files. In the case it is docker-compose.serverless.yml. It has necessary instructions how to build and deploy Nuclio platform as a docker container and enable corresponding support in CVAT.

      docker compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.dev.yml -f components/serverless/docker-compose.serverless.yml up -d --build
      
      docker compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.dev.yml -f components/serverless/docker-compose.serverless.yml ps
      
         Name                 Command                  State                            Ports
      -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      cvat         /usr/bin/supervisord             Up             8080/tcp
      cvat_db      docker-entrypoint.sh postgres    Up             5432/tcp
      cvat_proxy   /docker-entrypoint.sh /bin ...   Up             0.0.0.0:8080->80/tcp,:::8080->80/tcp
      cvat_redis   docker-entrypoint.sh redis ...   Up             6379/tcp
      cvat_ui      /docker-entrypoint.sh ngin ...   Up             80/tcp
      nuclio       /docker-entrypoint.sh sh - ...   Up (healthy)   80/tcp, 0.0.0.0:8070->8070/tcp,:::8070->8070/tcp
      

      Next step is to deploy builtin serverless functions using Nuclio command line tool (aka nuctl). It is assumed that you followed the installation guide and nuctl is already installed on your operating system. Run the following command to check that it works. In the beginning you should not have any deployed serverless functions.

      nuctl get functions
      
      No functions found
      

      Let’s see on examples how to use DL models for annotation in different computer vision tasks.

      Tracking using SiamMask

      In this use case a user needs to annotate all individual objects on a video as tracks. Basically for every object we need to know its location on every frame.

      First step is to deploy SiamMask. The deployment process can depend on your operating system. On Linux you can use serverless/deploy_cpu.sh auxiliary script, but below we are using nuctl directly.

      nuctl create project cvat
      
      nuctl deploy --project-name cvat --path "./serverless/pytorch/foolwood/siammask/nuclio" --platform local
      
      24.04.18 20:52:47.910 (I)                     nuctl Deploying function {"name": "pth-foolwood-siammask"}
      24.04.18 20:52:47.910 (I)                     nuctl Building {"builderKind": "docker", "versionInfo": "Label: 1.13.0, Git commit: c4422eb772781fb50fbf017698aae96199d81388, OS: linux, Arch: amd64, Go version: go1.21.7", "name": "pth-foolwood-siammask"}
      24.04.18 20:52:47.929 (W)            nuctl.platform MaxWorkers is deprecated and will be removed in v1.15.x, use NumWorkers instead
      24.04.18 20:52:48.044 (I)                     nuctl Staging files and preparing base images
      24.04.18 20:52:48.044 (W)                     nuctl Using user provided base image, runtime interpreter version is provided by the base image {"baseImage": "ubuntu:20.04"}
      24.04.18 20:52:48.044 (I)                     nuctl Building processor image {"registryURL": "", "taggedImageName": "cvat.pth.foolwood.siammask:latest"}
      24.04.18 20:52:48.044 (I)     nuctl.platform.docker Pulling image {"imageName": "quay.io/nuclio/handler-builder-python-onbuild:1.13.0-amd64"}
      24.04.18 20:52:49.717 (I)     nuctl.platform.docker Pulling image {"imageName": "quay.io/nuclio/uhttpc:0.0.1-amd64"}
      24.04.18 20:52:51.363 (I)            nuctl.platform Building docker image {"image": "cvat.pth.foolwood.siammask:latest"}
      24.04.18 20:55:58.853 (I)            nuctl.platform Pushing docker image into registry {"image": "cvat.pth.foolwood.siammask:latest", "registry": ""}
      24.04.18 20:55:58.853 (I)            nuctl.platform Docker image was successfully built and pushed into docker registry {"image": "cvat.pth.foolwood.siammask:latest"}
      24.04.18 20:55:58.853 (I)                     nuctl Build complete {"image": "cvat.pth.foolwood.siammask:latest"}
      24.04.18 20:55:58.861 (I)                     nuctl Cleaning up before deployment {"functionName": "pth-foolwood-siammask"}
      24.04.18 20:55:59.593 (I)            nuctl.platform Waiting for function to be ready {"timeout": 120}
      24.04.18 20:56:01.315 (I)                     nuctl Function deploy complete {"functionName": "pth-foolwood-siammask", "httpPort": 33453, "internalInvocationURLs": ["172.17.0.5:8080"], "externalInvocationURLs": ["0.0.0.0:33453"]}
      
      nuctl get functions
      
        NAMESPACE |         NAME          | PROJECT | STATE | NODE PORT | REPLICAS
        nuclio    | pth-foolwood-siammask | cvat    | ready |     49155 | 1/1
      

      Let’s see how it works in the UI. Go to the models tab and check that you can see SiamMask in the list. If you cannot, it means that there are some problems. Go to one of our public channels and ask for help.

      Models list with SiamMask

      After that, go to the new task page and create a task with this video file. You can choose any task name, any labels, and even another video file if you like. In this case, the Remote sources option was used to specify the video file. Press submit button at the end to finish the process.

      Create a video annotation task

      Open the task and use AI tools to start tracking an object. Draw a bounding box around an object, and sequentially switch through the frame and correct the restrictive box if necessary.

      Start tracking an object

      Finally you will get bounding boxes.

      SiamMask results

      SiamMask model is more optimized to work on Nvidia GPUs. For more information about deploying the model for the GPU, read on.

      Object detection using YOLO-v3

      First of all let’s deploy the DL model. The deployment process is similar for all serverless functions. Need to run nuctl deploy command with appropriate arguments. To simplify the process, you can use serverless/deploy_cpu.sh command. Inference of the serverless function is optimized for CPU using Intel OpenVINO framework.

      serverless/deploy_cpu.sh serverless/openvino/omz/public/yolo-v3-tf/
      
      Deploying serverless/openvino/omz/public/yolo-v3-tf function...
      21.07.12 15:55:17.314                     nuctl (I) Deploying function {"name": ""}
      21.07.12 15:55:17.314                     nuctl (I) Building {"versionInfo": "Label: 1.5.16, Git commit: ae43a6a560c2bec42d7ccfdf6e8e11a1e3cc3774, OS: linux, Arch: amd64, Go version: go1.14.3", "name": ""}
      21.07.12 15:55:17.682                     nuctl (I) Cleaning up before deployment {"functionName": "openvino-omz-public-yolo-v3-tf"}
      21.07.12 15:55:17.739                     nuctl (I) Staging files and preparing base images
      21.07.12 15:55:17.743                     nuctl (I) Building processor image {"imageName": "cvat/openvino.omz.public.yolo-v3-tf:latest"}
      21.07.12 15:55:17.743     nuctl.platform.docker (I) Pulling image {"imageName": "quay.io/nuclio/handler-builder-python-onbuild:1.5.16-amd64"}
      21.07.12 15:55:21.048     nuctl.platform.docker (I) Pulling image {"imageName": "quay.io/nuclio/uhttpc:0.0.1-amd64"}
      21.07.12 15:55:24.595            nuctl.platform (I) Building docker image {"image": "cvat/openvino.omz.public.yolo-v3-tf:latest"}
      21.07.12 15:55:30.359            nuctl.platform (I) Pushing docker image into registry {"image": "cvat/openvino.omz.public.yolo-v3-tf:latest", "registry": ""}
      21.07.12 15:55:30.359            nuctl.platform (I) Docker image was successfully built and pushed into docker registry {"image": "cvat/openvino.omz.public.yolo-v3-tf:latest"}
      21.07.12 15:55:30.359                     nuctl (I) Build complete {"result": {"Image":"cvat/openvino.omz.public.yolo-v3-tf:latest","UpdatedFunctionConfig":{"metadata":{"name":"openvino-omz-public-yolo-v3-tf","namespace":"nuclio","labels":{"nuclio.io/project-name":"cvat"},"annotations":{"framework":"openvino","name":"YOLO v3","spec":"[\n  { \"id\": 0, \"name\": \"person\" },\n  { \"id\": 1, \"name\": \"bicycle\" },\n  { \"id\": 2, \"name\": \"car\" },\n  { \"id\": 3, \"name\": \"motorbike\" },\n  { \"id\": 4, \"name\": \"aeroplane\" },\n  { \"id\": 5, \"name\": \"bus\" },\n  { \"id\": 6, \"name\": \"train\" },\n  { \"id\": 7, \"name\": \"truck\" },\n  { \"id\": 8, \"name\": \"boat\" },\n  { \"id\": 9, \"name\": \"traffic light\" },\n  { \"id\": 10, \"name\": \"fire hydrant\" },\n  { \"id\": 11, \"name\": \"stop sign\" },\n  { \"id\": 12, \"name\": \"parking meter\" },\n  { \"id\": 13, \"name\": \"bench\" },\n  { \"id\": 14, \"name\": \"bird\" },\n  { \"id\": 15, \"name\": \"cat\" },\n  { \"id\": 16, \"name\": \"dog\" },\n  { \"id\": 17, \"name\": \"horse\" },\n  { \"id\": 18, \"name\": \"sheep\" },\n  { \"id\": 19, \"name\": \"cow\" },\n  { \"id\": 20, \"name\": \"elephant\" },\n  { \"id\": 21, \"name\": \"bear\" },\n  { \"id\": 22, \"name\": \"zebra\" },\n  { \"id\": 23, \"name\": \"giraffe\" },\n  { \"id\": 24, \"name\": \"backpack\" },\n  { \"id\": 25, \"name\": \"umbrella\" },\n  { \"id\": 26, \"name\": \"handbag\" },\n  { \"id\": 27, \"name\": \"tie\" },\n  { \"id\": 28, \"name\": \"suitcase\" },\n  { \"id\": 29, \"name\": \"frisbee\" },\n  { \"id\": 30, \"name\": \"skis\" },\n  { \"id\": 31, \"name\": \"snowboard\" },\n  { \"id\": 32, \"name\": \"sports ball\" },\n  { \"id\": 33, \"name\": \"kite\" },\n  { \"id\": 34, \"name\": \"baseball bat\" },\n  { \"id\": 35, \"name\": \"baseball glove\" },\n  { \"id\": 36, \"name\": \"skateboard\" },\n  { \"id\": 37, \"name\": \"surfboard\" },\n  { \"id\": 38, \"name\": \"tennis racket\" },\n  { \"id\": 39, \"name\": \"bottle\" },\n  { \"id\": 40, \"name\": \"wine glass\" },\n  { \"id\": 41, \"name\": \"cup\" },\n  { \"id\": 42, \"name\": \"fork\" },\n  { \"id\": 43, \"name\": \"knife\" },\n  { \"id\": 44, \"name\": \"spoon\" },\n  { \"id\": 45, \"name\": \"bowl\" },\n  { \"id\": 46, \"name\": \"banana\" },\n  { \"id\": 47, \"name\": \"apple\" },\n  { \"id\": 48, \"name\": \"sandwich\" },\n  { \"id\": 49, \"name\": \"orange\" },\n  { \"id\": 50, \"name\": \"broccoli\" },\n  { \"id\": 51, \"name\": \"carrot\" },\n  { \"id\": 52, \"name\": \"hot dog\" },\n  { \"id\": 53, \"name\": \"pizza\" },\n  { \"id\": 54, \"name\": \"donut\" },\n  { \"id\": 55, \"name\": \"cake\" },\n  { \"id\": 56, \"name\": \"chair\" },\n  { \"id\": 57, \"name\": \"sofa\" },\n  { \"id\": 58, \"name\": \"pottedplant\" },\n  { \"id\": 59, \"name\": \"bed\" },\n  { \"id\": 60, \"name\": \"diningtable\" },\n  { \"id\": 61, \"name\": \"toilet\" },\n  { \"id\": 62, \"name\": \"tvmonitor\" },\n  { \"id\": 63, \"name\": \"laptop\" },\n  { \"id\": 64, \"name\": \"mouse\" },\n  { \"id\": 65, \"name\": \"remote\" },\n  { \"id\": 66, \"name\": \"keyboard\" },\n  { \"id\": 67, \"name\": \"cell phone\" },\n  { \"id\": 68, \"name\": \"microwave\" },\n  { \"id\": 69, \"name\": \"oven\" },\n  { \"id\": 70, \"name\": \"toaster\" },\n  { \"id\": 71, \"name\": \"sink\" },\n  { \"id\": 72, \"name\": \"refrigerator\" },\n  { \"id\": 73, \"name\": \"book\" },\n  { \"id\": 74, \"name\": \"clock\" },\n  { \"id\": 75, \"name\": \"vase\" },\n  { \"id\": 76, \"name\": \"scissors\" },\n  { \"id\": 77, \"name\": \"teddy bear\" },\n  { \"id\": 78, \"name\": \"hair drier\" },\n  { \"id\": 79, \"name\": \"toothbrush\" }\n]\n","type":"detector"}},"spec":{"description":"YOLO v3 via Intel OpenVINO","handler":"main:handler","runtime":"python:3.6","env":[{"name":"NUCLIO_PYTHON_EXE_PATH","value":"/opt/nuclio/common/openvino/python3"}],"resources":{},"image":"cvat/openvino.omz.public.yolo-v3-tf:latest","targetCPU":75,"triggers":{"myHttpTrigger":{"class":"","kind":"http","name":"myHttpTrigger","maxWorkers":2,"workerAvailabilityTimeoutMilliseconds":10000,"attributes":{"maxRequestBodySize":33554432}}},"volumes":[{"volume":{"name":"volume-1","hostPath":{"path":"/home/nmanovic/Workspace/cvat/serverless/common"}},"volumeMount":{"name":"volume-1","mountPath":"/opt/nuclio/common"}}],"build":{"image":"cvat/openvino.omz.public.yolo-v3-tf","baseImage":"openvino/ubuntu18_dev:2020.2","directives":{"preCopy":[{"kind":"USER","value":"root"},{"kind":"WORKDIR","value":"/opt/nuclio"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"ln -s /usr/bin/pip3 /usr/bin/pip"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"/opt/intel/openvino/deployment_tools/open_model_zoo/tools/downloader/downloader.py --name yolo-v3-tf -o /opt/nuclio/open_model_zoo"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"/opt/intel/openvino/deployment_tools/open_model_zoo/tools/downloader/converter.py --name yolo-v3-tf --precisions FP32 -d /opt/nuclio/open_model_zoo -o /opt/nuclio/open_model_zoo"}]},"codeEntryType":"image"},"platform":{"attributes":{"mountMode":"volume","restartPolicy":{"maximumRetryCount":3,"name":"always"}}},"readinessTimeoutSeconds":60,"securityContext":{},"eventTimeout":"30s"}}}}
      21.07.12 15:55:31.496            nuctl.platform (I) Waiting for function to be ready {"timeout": 60}
      21.07.12 15:55:32.894                     nuctl (I) Function deploy complete {"functionName": "openvino-omz-public-yolo-v3-tf", "httpPort": 49156}
      

      Again, go to models tab and check that you can see YOLO v3 in the list. If you cannot by a reason it means that there are some problems. Go to one of our public channels and ask for help.

      Let us reuse the task which you created for testing SiamMask serverless function above. Choose the magic wand tool, go to the Detectors tab, and select YOLO v3 model. Press Annotate button and after a couple of seconds you should see detection results. Do not forget to save annotations.

      YOLO v3 results

      Also it is possible to run a detector for the whole annotation task. Thus CVAT will run the serverless function on every frame of the task and submit results directly into database. For more details please read the guide.

      Objects segmentation using Mask-RCNN

      If you have a detector, which returns polygons, you can segment objects. One of such detectors is Mask-RCNN. There are several implementations of the detector available out of the box:

      • serverless/openvino/omz/public/mask_rcnn_inception_resnet_v2_atrous_coco is optimized using Intel OpenVINO framework and works well if it is run on an Intel CPU.
      • serverless/tensorflow/matterport/mask_rcnn/ is optimized for GPU.

      The deployment process for a serverless function optimized for GPU is similar. Just need to run serverless/deploy_gpu.sh script. It runs mostly the same commands but utilize function-gpu.yaml configuration file instead of function.yaml internally. See next sections if you want to understand the difference.

      Note: Please do not run several GPU functions at the same time. In many cases it will not work out of the box. For now you should manually schedule different functions on different GPUs and it requires source code modification. Nuclio autoscaler does not support the local platform (docker).

      serverless/deploy_gpu.sh serverless/tensorflow/matterport/mask_rcnn
      
      Deploying serverless/tensorflow/matterport/mask_rcnn function...
      21.07.12 16:48:48.995                     nuctl (I) Deploying function {"name": ""}
      21.07.12 16:48:48.995                     nuctl (I) Building {"versionInfo": "Label: 1.5.16, Git commit: ae43a6a560c2bec42d7ccfdf6e8e11a1e3cc3774, OS: linux, Arch: amd64, Go version: go1.14.3", "name": ""}
      21.07.12 16:48:49.356                     nuctl (I) Cleaning up before deployment {"functionName": "tf-matterport-mask-rcnn"}
      21.07.12 16:48:49.470                     nuctl (I) Function already exists, deleting function containers {"functionName": "tf-matterport-mask-rcnn"}
      21.07.12 16:48:50.247                     nuctl (I) Staging files and preparing base images
      21.07.12 16:48:50.248                     nuctl (I) Building processor image {"imageName": "cvat/tf.matterport.mask_rcnn:latest"}
      21.07.12 16:48:50.249     nuctl.platform.docker (I) Pulling image {"imageName": "quay.io/nuclio/handler-builder-python-onbuild:1.5.16-amd64"}
      21.07.12 16:48:53.674     nuctl.platform.docker (I) Pulling image {"imageName": "quay.io/nuclio/uhttpc:0.0.1-amd64"}
      21.07.12 16:48:57.424            nuctl.platform (I) Building docker image {"image": "cvat/tf.matterport.mask_rcnn:latest"}
      21.07.12 16:48:57.763            nuctl.platform (I) Pushing docker image into registry {"image": "cvat/tf.matterport.mask_rcnn:latest", "registry": ""}
      21.07.12 16:48:57.764            nuctl.platform (I) Docker image was successfully built and pushed into docker registry {"image": "cvat/tf.matterport.mask_rcnn:latest"}
      21.07.12 16:48:57.764                     nuctl (I) Build complete {"result": {"Image":"cvat/tf.matterport.mask_rcnn:latest","UpdatedFunctionConfig":{"metadata":{"name":"tf-matterport-mask-rcnn","namespace":"nuclio","labels":{"nuclio.io/project-name":"cvat"},"annotations":{"framework":"tensorflow","name":"Mask RCNN via Tensorflow","spec":"[\n  { \"id\": 0, \"name\": \"BG\" },\n  { \"id\": 1, \"name\": \"person\" },\n  { \"id\": 2, \"name\": \"bicycle\" },\n  { \"id\": 3, \"name\": \"car\" },\n  { \"id\": 4, \"name\": \"motorcycle\" },\n  { \"id\": 5, \"name\": \"airplane\" },\n  { \"id\": 6, \"name\": \"bus\" },\n  { \"id\": 7, \"name\": \"train\" },\n  { \"id\": 8, \"name\": \"truck\" },\n  { \"id\": 9, \"name\": \"boat\" },\n  { \"id\": 10, \"name\": \"traffic_light\" },\n  { \"id\": 11, \"name\": \"fire_hydrant\" },\n  { \"id\": 12, \"name\": \"stop_sign\" },\n  { \"id\": 13, \"name\": \"parking_meter\" },\n  { \"id\": 14, \"name\": \"bench\" },\n  { \"id\": 15, \"name\": \"bird\" },\n  { \"id\": 16, \"name\": \"cat\" },\n  { \"id\": 17, \"name\": \"dog\" },\n  { \"id\": 18, \"name\": \"horse\" },\n  { \"id\": 19, \"name\": \"sheep\" },\n  { \"id\": 20, \"name\": \"cow\" },\n  { \"id\": 21, \"name\": \"elephant\" },\n  { \"id\": 22, \"name\": \"bear\" },\n  { \"id\": 23, \"name\": \"zebra\" },\n  { \"id\": 24, \"name\": \"giraffe\" },\n  { \"id\": 25, \"name\": \"backpack\" },\n  { \"id\": 26, \"name\": \"umbrella\" },\n  { \"id\": 27, \"name\": \"handbag\" },\n  { \"id\": 28, \"name\": \"tie\" },\n  { \"id\": 29, \"name\": \"suitcase\" },\n  { \"id\": 30, \"name\": \"frisbee\" },\n  { \"id\": 31, \"name\": \"skis\" },\n  { \"id\": 32, \"name\": \"snowboard\" },\n  { \"id\": 33, \"name\": \"sports_ball\" },\n  { \"id\": 34, \"name\": \"kite\" },\n  { \"id\": 35, \"name\": \"baseball_bat\" },\n  { \"id\": 36, \"name\": \"baseball_glove\" },\n  { \"id\": 37, \"name\": \"skateboard\" },\n  { \"id\": 38, \"name\": \"surfboard\" },\n  { \"id\": 39, \"name\": \"tennis_racket\" },\n  { \"id\": 40, \"name\": \"bottle\" },\n  { \"id\": 41, \"name\": \"wine_glass\" },\n  { \"id\": 42, \"name\": \"cup\" },\n  { \"id\": 43, \"name\": \"fork\" },\n  { \"id\": 44, \"name\": \"knife\" },\n  { \"id\": 45, \"name\": \"spoon\" },\n  { \"id\": 46, \"name\": \"bowl\" },\n  { \"id\": 47, \"name\": \"banana\" },\n  { \"id\": 48, \"name\": \"apple\" },\n  { \"id\": 49, \"name\": \"sandwich\" },\n  { \"id\": 50, \"name\": \"orange\" },\n  { \"id\": 51, \"name\": \"broccoli\" },\n  { \"id\": 52, \"name\": \"carrot\" },\n  { \"id\": 53, \"name\": \"hot_dog\" },\n  { \"id\": 54, \"name\": \"pizza\" },\n  { \"id\": 55, \"name\": \"donut\" },\n  { \"id\": 56, \"name\": \"cake\" },\n  { \"id\": 57, \"name\": \"chair\" },\n  { \"id\": 58, \"name\": \"couch\" },\n  { \"id\": 59, \"name\": \"potted_plant\" },\n  { \"id\": 60, \"name\": \"bed\" },\n  { \"id\": 61, \"name\": \"dining_table\" },\n  { \"id\": 62, \"name\": \"toilet\" },\n  { \"id\": 63, \"name\": \"tv\" },\n  { \"id\": 64, \"name\": \"laptop\" },\n  { \"id\": 65, \"name\": \"mouse\" },\n  { \"id\": 66, \"name\": \"remote\" },\n  { \"id\": 67, \"name\": \"keyboard\" },\n  { \"id\": 68, \"name\": \"cell_phone\" },\n  { \"id\": 69, \"name\": \"microwave\" },\n  { \"id\": 70, \"name\": \"oven\" },\n  { \"id\": 71, \"name\": \"toaster\" },\n  { \"id\": 72, \"name\": \"sink\" },\n  { \"id\": 73, \"name\": \"refrigerator\" },\n  { \"id\": 74, \"name\": \"book\" },\n  { \"id\": 75, \"name\": \"clock\" },\n  { \"id\": 76, \"name\": \"vase\" },\n  { \"id\": 77, \"name\": \"scissors\" },\n  { \"id\": 78, \"name\": \"teddy_bear\" },\n  { \"id\": 79, \"name\": \"hair_drier\" },\n  { \"id\": 80, \"name\": \"toothbrush\" }\n]\n","type":"detector"}},"spec":{"description":"Mask RCNN optimized for GPU","handler":"main:handler","runtime":"python:3.6","env":[{"name":"MASK_RCNN_DIR","value":"/opt/nuclio/Mask_RCNN"}],"resources":{"limits":{"nvidia.com/gpu":"1"}},"image":"cvat/tf.matterport.mask_rcnn:latest","targetCPU":75,"triggers":{"myHttpTrigger":{"class":"","kind":"http","name":"myHttpTrigger","maxWorkers":1,"workerAvailabilityTimeoutMilliseconds":10000,"attributes":{"maxRequestBodySize":33554432}}},"volumes":[{"volume":{"name":"volume-1","hostPath":{"path":"/home/nmanovic/Workspace/cvat/serverless/common"}},"volumeMount":{"name":"volume-1","mountPath":"/opt/nuclio/common"}}],"build":{"functionConfigPath":"serverless/tensorflow/matterport/mask_rcnn/nuclio/function-gpu.yaml","image":"cvat/tf.matterport.mask_rcnn","baseImage":"tensorflow/tensorflow:1.15.5-gpu-py3","directives":{"postCopy":[{"kind":"WORKDIR","value":"/opt/nuclio"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"apt update \u0026\u0026 apt install --no-install-recommends -y git curl"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/matterport/Mask_RCNN.git"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"curl -L https://github.com/matterport/Mask_RCNN/releases/download/v2.0/mask_rcnn_coco.h5 -o Mask_RCNN/mask_rcnn_coco.h5"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"pip3 install numpy cython pyyaml keras==2.1.0 scikit-image Pillow"}]},"codeEntryType":"image"},"platform":{"attributes":{"mountMode":"volume","restartPolicy":{"maximumRetryCount":3,"name":"always"}}},"readinessTimeoutSeconds":60,"securityContext":{},"eventTimeout":"30s"}}}}
      21.07.12 16:48:59.071            nuctl.platform (I) Waiting for function to be ready {"timeout": 60}
      21.07.12 16:49:00.437                     nuctl (I) Function deploy complete {"functionName": "tf-matterport-mask-rcnn", "httpPort": 49155}
      

      Now you should be able to annotate objects using segmentation masks.

      Mask RCNN results

      Adding your own DL models

      Choose a DL model

      For the tutorial I will choose a popular AI library with a lot of models inside. In your case it can be your own model. If it is based on detectron2 it will be easy to integrate. Just follow the tutorial.

      Detectron2 is Facebook AI Research’s next generation library that provides state-of-the-art detection and segmentation algorithms. It is the successor of Detectron and maskrcnn-benchmark. It supports a number of computer vision research projects and production applications in Facebook.

      Clone the repository somewhere. I assume that all other experiments will be run from the cloned detectron2 directory.

      git clone https://github.com/facebookresearch/detectron2
      cd detectron2
      

      Run local experiments

      Let’s run a detection model locally. First of all need to install requirements for the library.

      In my case I have Ubuntu 20.04 with python 3.8.5. I installed PyTorch 1.8.1 for Linux with pip, python, and CPU inside a virtual environment. Follow opencv-python installation guide to get the library for demo and visualization.

      python3 -m venv .detectron2
      . .detectron2/bin/activate
      pip install torch==1.8.1+cpu torchvision==0.9.1+cpu torchaudio==0.8.1 -f https://download.pytorch.org/whl/torch_stable.html
      pip install opencv-python
      

      Install the detectron2 library from your local clone (you should be inside detectron2 directory).

      python -m pip install -e .
      

      After the library from Facebook AI Research is installed, we can run a couple of experiments. See the official tutorial for more examples. I decided to experiment with RetinaNet. First step is to download model weights.

      curl -O https://dl.fbaipublicfiles.com/detectron2/COCO-Detection/retinanet_R_101_FPN_3x/190397697/model_final_971ab9.pkl
      

      To run experiments let’s download an image with cats from wikipedia.

      curl -O https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0b/Cat_poster_1.jpg/1920px-Cat_poster_1.jpg
      

      Finally let’s run the DL model inference on CPU. If all is fine, you will see a window with cats and bounding boxes around them with scores.

      python demo/demo.py --config-file configs/COCO-Detection/retinanet_R_101_FPN_3x.yaml \
        --input 1920px-Cat_poster_1.jpg --opts MODEL.WEIGHTS model_final_971ab9.pkl MODEL.DEVICE cpu
      

      Cats detected by RetinaNet R101

      Next step is to minimize demo/demo.py script and keep code which is necessary to load, run, and interpret output of the model only. Let’s hard code parameters and remove argparse. Keep only code which is responsible for working with an image. There is no common advice how to minimize some code.

      Finally you should get something like the code below which has fixed config, read a predefined image, initialize predictor, and run inference. As the final step it prints all detected bounding boxes with scores and labels.

      from detectron2.config import get_cfg
      from detectron2.data.detection_utils import read_image
      from detectron2.engine.defaults import DefaultPredictor
      from detectron2.data.datasets.builtin_meta import COCO_CATEGORIES
      
      CONFIG_FILE = "configs/COCO-Detection/retinanet_R_101_FPN_3x.yaml"
      CONFIG_OPTS = ["MODEL.WEIGHTS", "model_final_971ab9.pkl", "MODEL.DEVICE", "cpu"]
      CONFIDENCE_THRESHOLD = 0.5
      
      def setup_cfg():
          cfg = get_cfg()
          cfg.merge_from_file(CONFIG_FILE)
          cfg.merge_from_list(CONFIG_OPTS)
          cfg.MODEL.RETINANET.SCORE_THRESH_TEST = CONFIDENCE_THRESHOLD
          cfg.MODEL.ROI_HEADS.SCORE_THRESH_TEST = CONFIDENCE_THRESHOLD
          cfg.MODEL.PANOPTIC_FPN.COMBINE.INSTANCES_CONFIDENCE_THRESH = CONFIDENCE_THRESHOLD
          cfg.freeze()
          return cfg
      
      
      if __name__ == "__main__":
          cfg = setup_cfg()
          input = "1920px-Cat_poster_1.jpg"
          img = read_image(input, format="BGR")
          predictor = DefaultPredictor(cfg)
          predictions = predictor(img)
          instances = predictions['instances']
          pred_boxes = instances.pred_boxes
          scores = instances.scores
          pred_classes = instances.pred_classes
          for box, score, label in zip(pred_boxes, scores, pred_classes):
              label = COCO_CATEGORIES[int(label)]["name"]
              print(box.tolist(), float(score), label)
      

      DL model as a serverless function

      When we know how to run the DL model locally, we can prepare a serverless function which can be used by CVAT to annotate data. Let’s see how function.yaml will look like…

      Let’s look at faster_rcnn_inception_v2_coco serverless function configuration as an example and try adapting it to our case. First of all let’s invent an unique name for the new function: pth-facebookresearch-detectron2-retinanet-r101. Section annotations describes our function for CVAT serverless subsystem:

      • annotations.name is a display name
      • annotations.type is a type of the serverless function. It can have several different values. Basically it affects input and output of the function. In our case it has detector type and it means that the integrated DL model can generate shapes with labels for an image.
      • annotations.framework is used for information only and can have arbitrary value. Usually it has values like OpenVINO, PyTorch, TensorFlow, etc.
      • annotations.spec describes the list of labels which the model supports. In the case the DL model was trained on MS COCO dataset and the list of labels correspond to the dataset.
      • spec.description is used to provide basic information for the model.

      All other parameters are described in Nuclio documentation.

      • spec.handler is the entry point to your function.
      • spec.runtime is the name of the language runtime.
      • spec.eventTimeout is the global event timeout

      Next step is to describe how to build our serverless function:

      • spec.build.image is the name of your docker image
      • spec.build.baseImage is the name of a base container image from which to build the function
      • spec.build.directives are commands to build your docker image

      In our case we start from Ubuntu 20.04 base image, install curl to download weights for our model, git to clone detectron2 project from GitHub, and python together with pip. Repeat installation steps which we used to setup the DL model locally with minor modifications.

      For Nuclio platform we have to specify a couple of more parameters:

      • spec.triggers.myHttpTrigger describes HTTP trigger to handle incoming HTTP requests.
      • spec.platform describes some important parameters to run your functions like restartPolicy and mountMode. Read Nuclio documentation for more details.
      metadata:
        name: pth-facebookresearch-detectron2-retinanet-r101
        namespace: cvat
        annotations:
          name: RetinaNet R101
          type: detector
          spec: |
            [
              { "id": 1, "name": "person" },
              { "id": 2, "name": "bicycle" },
      
              ...
      
              { "id":89, "name": "hair_drier" },
              { "id":90, "name": "toothbrush" }
            ]      
      
      spec:
        description: RetinaNet R101 from Detectron2
        runtime: 'python:3.8'
        handler: main:handler
        eventTimeout: 30s
      
        build:
          image: cvat/pth.facebookresearch.detectron2.retinanet_r101
          baseImage: ubuntu:20.04
      
          directives:
            preCopy:
              - kind: ENV
                value: DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
              - kind: RUN
                value: apt-get update && apt-get -y install curl git python3 python3-pip
              - kind: WORKDIR
                value: /opt/nuclio
              - kind: RUN
                value: pip3 install torch==1.8.1+cpu torchvision==0.9.1+cpu torchaudio==0.8.1 -f https://download.pytorch.org/whl/torch_stable.html
              - kind: RUN
                value: pip3 install 'git+https://github.com/facebookresearch/detectron2@v0.4'
              - kind: RUN
                value: curl -O https://dl.fbaipublicfiles.com/detectron2/COCO-Detection/retinanet_R_101_FPN_3x/190397697/model_final_971ab9.pkl
              - kind: RUN
                value: ln -s /usr/bin/pip3 /usr/local/bin/pip
      
        triggers:
          myHttpTrigger:
            maxWorkers: 2
            kind: 'http'
            workerAvailabilityTimeoutMilliseconds: 10000
            attributes:
              maxRequestBodySize: 33554432 # 32MB
      
        platform:
          attributes:
            restartPolicy:
              name: always
              maximumRetryCount: 3
            mountMode: volume
      

      Full code can be found here: detectron2/retinanet/nuclio/function.yaml

      Next step is to adapt our source code which we implemented to run the DL model locally to requirements of Nuclio platform. First step is to load the model into memory using init_context(context) function. Read more about the function in Best Practices and Common Pitfalls.

      After that we need to accept incoming HTTP requests, run inference, reply with detection results. For the process our entry point is responsible which we specified in our function specification handler(context, event). Again in accordance to function specification the entry point should be located inside main.py.

      
      def init_context(context):
          context.logger.info("Init context...  0%")
      
          cfg = get_config('COCO-Detection/retinanet_R_101_FPN_3x.yaml')
          cfg.merge_from_list(CONFIG_OPTS)
          cfg.MODEL.RETINANET.SCORE_THRESH_TEST = CONFIDENCE_THRESHOLD
          cfg.MODEL.ROI_HEADS.SCORE_THRESH_TEST = CONFIDENCE_THRESHOLD
          cfg.MODEL.PANOPTIC_FPN.COMBINE.INSTANCES_CONFIDENCE_THRESH = CONFIDENCE_THRESHOLD
          cfg.freeze()
          predictor = DefaultPredictor(cfg)
      
          context.user_data.model_handler = predictor
      
          context.logger.info("Init context...100%")
      
      def handler(context, event):
          context.logger.info("Run retinanet-R101 model")
          data = event.body
          buf = io.BytesIO(base64.b64decode(data["image"]))
          threshold = float(data.get("threshold", 0.5))
          image = convert_PIL_to_numpy(Image.open(buf), format="BGR")
      
          predictions = context.user_data.model_handler(image)
      
          instances = predictions['instances']
          pred_boxes = instances.pred_boxes
          scores = instances.scores
          pred_classes = instances.pred_classes
          results = []
          for box, score, label in zip(pred_boxes, scores, pred_classes):
              label = COCO_CATEGORIES[int(label)]["name"]
              if score >= threshold:
                  results.append({
                      "confidence": str(float(score)),
                      "label": label,
                      "points": box.tolist(),
                      "type": "rectangle",
                  })
      
          return context.Response(body=json.dumps(results), headers={},
              content_type='application/json', status_code=200)
      

      Full code can be found here: detectron2/retinanet/nuclio/main.py

      Deploy RetinaNet serverless function

      To use the new serverless function you have to deploy it using nuctl command. The actual deployment process is described in automatic annotation guide.

      ./serverless/deploy_cpu.sh ./serverless/pytorch/facebookresearch/detectron2/retinanet/
      
      21.07.21 15:20:31.011                     nuctl (I) Deploying function {"name": ""}
      21.07.21 15:20:31.011                     nuctl (I) Building {"versionInfo": "Label: 1.5.16, Git commit: ae43a6a560c2bec42d7ccfdf6e8e11a1e3cc3774, OS: linux, Arch: amd64, Go version: go1.14.3", "name": ""}
      21.07.21 15:20:31.407                     nuctl (I) Cleaning up before deployment {"functionName": "pth-facebookresearch-detectron2-retinanet-r101"}
      21.07.21 15:20:31.497                     nuctl (I) Function already exists, deleting function containers {"functionName": "pth-facebookresearch-detectron2-retinanet-r101"}
      21.07.21 15:20:31.914                     nuctl (I) Staging files and preparing base images
      21.07.21 15:20:31.915                     nuctl (I) Building processor image {"imageName": "cvat/pth.facebookresearch.detectron2.retinanet_r101:latest"}
      21.07.21 15:20:31.916     nuctl.platform.docker (I) Pulling image {"imageName": "quay.io/nuclio/handler-builder-python-onbuild:1.5.16-amd64"}
      21.07.21 15:20:34.495     nuctl.platform.docker (I) Pulling image {"imageName": "quay.io/nuclio/uhttpc:0.0.1-amd64"}
      21.07.21 15:20:37.524            nuctl.platform (I) Building docker image {"image": "cvat/pth.facebookresearch.detectron2.retinanet_r101:latest"}
      21.07.21 15:20:37.852            nuctl.platform (I) Pushing docker image into registry {"image": "cvat/pth.facebookresearch.detectron2.retinanet_r101:latest", "registry": ""}
      21.07.21 15:20:37.853            nuctl.platform (I) Docker image was successfully built and pushed into docker registry {"image": "cvat/pth.facebookresearch.detectron2.retinanet_r101:latest"}
      21.07.21 15:20:37.853                     nuctl (I) Build complete {"result": {"Image":"cvat/pth.facebookresearch.detectron2.retinanet_r101:latest","UpdatedFunctionConfig":{"metadata":{"name":"pth-facebookresearch-detectron2-retinanet-r101","namespace":"nuclio","labels":{"nuclio.io/project-name":"cvat"},"annotations":{"framework":"pytorch","name":"RetinaNet R101","spec":"[\n  { \"id\": 1, \"name\": \"person\" },\n  { \"id\": 2, \"name\": \"bicycle\" },\n  { \"id\": 3, \"name\": \"car\" },\n  { \"id\": 4, \"name\": \"motorcycle\" },\n  { \"id\": 5, \"name\": \"airplane\" },\n  { \"id\": 6, \"name\": \"bus\" },\n  { \"id\": 7, \"name\": \"train\" },\n  { \"id\": 8, \"name\": \"truck\" },\n  { \"id\": 9, \"name\": \"boat\" },\n  { \"id\":10, \"name\": \"traffic_light\" },\n  { \"id\":11, \"name\": \"fire_hydrant\" },\n  { \"id\":13, \"name\": \"stop_sign\" },\n  { \"id\":14, \"name\": \"parking_meter\" },\n  { \"id\":15, \"name\": \"bench\" },\n  { \"id\":16, \"name\": \"bird\" },\n  { \"id\":17, \"name\": \"cat\" },\n  { \"id\":18, \"name\": \"dog\" },\n  { \"id\":19, \"name\": \"horse\" },\n  { \"id\":20, \"name\": \"sheep\" },\n  { \"id\":21, \"name\": \"cow\" },\n  { \"id\":22, \"name\": \"elephant\" },\n  { \"id\":23, \"name\": \"bear\" },\n  { \"id\":24, \"name\": \"zebra\" },\n  { \"id\":25, \"name\": \"giraffe\" },\n  { \"id\":27, \"name\": \"backpack\" },\n  { \"id\":28, \"name\": \"umbrella\" },\n  { \"id\":31, \"name\": \"handbag\" },\n  { \"id\":32, \"name\": \"tie\" },\n  { \"id\":33, \"name\": \"suitcase\" },\n  { \"id\":34, \"name\": \"frisbee\" },\n  { \"id\":35, \"name\": \"skis\" },\n  { \"id\":36, \"name\": \"snowboard\" },\n  { \"id\":37, \"name\": \"sports_ball\" },\n  { \"id\":38, \"name\": \"kite\" },\n  { \"id\":39, \"name\": \"baseball_bat\" },\n  { \"id\":40, \"name\": \"baseball_glove\" },\n  { \"id\":41, \"name\": \"skateboard\" },\n  { \"id\":42, \"name\": \"surfboard\" },\n  { \"id\":43, \"name\": \"tennis_racket\" },\n  { \"id\":44, \"name\": \"bottle\" },\n  { \"id\":46, \"name\": \"wine_glass\" },\n  { \"id\":47, \"name\": \"cup\" },\n  { \"id\":48, \"name\": \"fork\" },\n  { \"id\":49, \"name\": \"knife\" },\n  { \"id\":50, \"name\": \"spoon\" },\n  { \"id\":51, \"name\": \"bowl\" },\n  { \"id\":52, \"name\": \"banana\" },\n  { \"id\":53, \"name\": \"apple\" },\n  { \"id\":54, \"name\": \"sandwich\" },\n  { \"id\":55, \"name\": \"orange\" },\n  { \"id\":56, \"name\": \"broccoli\" },\n  { \"id\":57, \"name\": \"carrot\" },\n  { \"id\":58, \"name\": \"hot_dog\" },\n  { \"id\":59, \"name\": \"pizza\" },\n  { \"id\":60, \"name\": \"donut\" },\n  { \"id\":61, \"name\": \"cake\" },\n  { \"id\":62, \"name\": \"chair\" },\n  { \"id\":63, \"name\": \"couch\" },\n  { \"id\":64, \"name\": \"potted_plant\" },\n  { \"id\":65, \"name\": \"bed\" },\n  { \"id\":67, \"name\": \"dining_table\" },\n  { \"id\":70, \"name\": \"toilet\" },\n  { \"id\":72, \"name\": \"tv\" },\n  { \"id\":73, \"name\": \"laptop\" },\n  { \"id\":74, \"name\": \"mouse\" },\n  { \"id\":75, \"name\": \"remote\" },\n  { \"id\":76, \"name\": \"keyboard\" },\n  { \"id\":77, \"name\": \"cell_phone\" },\n  { \"id\":78, \"name\": \"microwave\" },\n  { \"id\":79, \"name\": \"oven\" },\n  { \"id\":80, \"name\": \"toaster\" },\n  { \"id\":81, \"name\": \"sink\" },\n  { \"id\":83, \"name\": \"refrigerator\" },\n  { \"id\":84, \"name\": \"book\" },\n  { \"id\":85, \"name\": \"clock\" },\n  { \"id\":86, \"name\": \"vase\" },\n  { \"id\":87, \"name\": \"scissors\" },\n  { \"id\":88, \"name\": \"teddy_bear\" },\n  { \"id\":89, \"name\": \"hair_drier\" },\n  { \"id\":90, \"name\": \"toothbrush\" }\n]\n","type":"detector"}},"spec":{"description":"RetinaNet R101 from Detectron2","handler":"main:handler","runtime":"python:3.8","resources":{},"image":"cvat/pth.facebookresearch.detectron2.retinanet_r101:latest","targetCPU":75,"triggers":{"myHttpTrigger":{"class":"","kind":"http","name":"myHttpTrigger","maxWorkers":2,"workerAvailabilityTimeoutMilliseconds":10000,"attributes":{"maxRequestBodySize":33554432}}},"volumes":[{"volume":{"name":"volume-1","hostPath":{"path":"/home/nmanovic/Workspace/cvat/serverless/common"}},"volumeMount":{"name":"volume-1","mountPath":"/opt/nuclio/common"}}],"build":{"image":"cvat/pth.facebookresearch.detectron2.retinanet_r101","baseImage":"ubuntu:20.04","directives":{"preCopy":[{"kind":"ENV","value":"DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"apt-get update \u0026\u0026 apt-get -y install curl git python3 python3-pip"},{"kind":"WORKDIR","value":"/opt/nuclio"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"pip3 install torch==1.8.1+cpu torchvision==0.9.1+cpu torchaudio==0.8.1 -f https://download.pytorch.org/whl/torch_stable.html"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"pip3 install 'git+https://github.com/facebookresearch/detectron2@v0.4'"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"curl -O https://dl.fbaipublicfiles.com/detectron2/COCO-Detection/retinanet_R_101_FPN_3x/190397697/model_final_971ab9.pkl"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"ln -s /usr/bin/pip3 /usr/local/bin/pip"}]},"codeEntryType":"image"},"platform":{"attributes":{"mountMode":"volume","restartPolicy":{"maximumRetryCount":3,"name":"always"}}},"readinessTimeoutSeconds":60,"securityContext":{},"eventTimeout":"30s"}}}}
      21.07.21 15:20:39.042            nuctl.platform (I) Waiting for function to be ready {"timeout": 60}
      21.07.21 15:20:40.480                     nuctl (I) Function deploy complete {"functionName": "pth-facebookresearch-detectron2-retinanet-r101", "httpPort": 49153}
      

      Advanced capabilities

      Optimize using GPU

      To optimize a function for a specific device (e.g. GPU), basically you just need to modify instructions above to run the function on the target device. In most cases it will be necessary to modify installation instructions only.

      For RetinaNet R101 which was added above modifications will look like:

      --- function.yaml	2021-06-25 21:06:51.603281723 +0300
      +++ function-gpu.yaml	2021-07-07 22:38:53.454202637 +0300
      @@ -90,7 +90,7 @@
             ]
      
       spec:
      -  description: RetinaNet R101 from Detectron2
      +  description: RetinaNet R101 from Detectron2 optimized for GPU
         runtime: 'python:3.8'
         handler: main:handler
         eventTimeout: 30s
      @@ -108,7 +108,7 @@
               - kind: WORKDIR
                 value: /opt/nuclio
               - kind: RUN
      -          value: pip3 install torch==1.8.1+cpu torchvision==0.9.1+cpu torchaudio==0.8.1 -f https://download.pytorch.org/whl/torch_stable.html
      +          value: pip3 install torch==1.8.1+cu111 torchvision==0.9.1+cu111 torchaudio==0.8.1 -f https://download.pytorch.org/whl/torch_stable.html
               - kind: RUN
                 value: git clone https://github.com/facebookresearch/detectron2
               - kind: RUN
      @@ -120,12 +120,16 @@
      
         triggers:
           myHttpTrigger:
      -      maxWorkers: 2
      +      maxWorkers: 1
             kind: 'http'
             workerAvailabilityTimeoutMilliseconds: 10000
             attributes:
               maxRequestBodySize: 33554432 # 32MB
      
      +  resources:
      +    limits:
      +      nvidia.com/gpu: 1
      +
         platform:
           attributes:
             restartPolicy:
      

      Note: GPU has very limited amount of memory and it doesn’t allow to run multiple serverless functions in parallel for now using free open-source Nuclio version on the local platform because scaling to zero feature is absent. Theoretically it is possible to run different functions on different GPUs, but it requires to change source code on corresponding serverless functions to choose a free GPU.

      Debugging a serverless function

      Let’s say you have a problem with your serverless function and want to debug it. Of course you can use context.logger.info or similar methods to print the intermediate state of your function. Another way is to debug using Visual Studio Code. Please see instructions below to setup your environment step by step.

      Let’s modify our function.yaml to include debugpy package and specify that maxWorkers count is 1. Otherwise both workers will try to use the same port and it will lead to an exception in python code.

              - kind: RUN
                value: pip3 install debugpy
      
        triggers:
          myHttpTrigger:
            maxWorkers: 1
      

      Change main.py to listen to a port (e.g. 5678). Insert code below in the beginning of your file with entry point.

      import debugpy
      debugpy.listen(5678)
      

      After these changes deploy the serverless function once again. For serverless/pytorch/facebookresearch/detectron2/retinanet/nuclio/ you should run the command below:

      serverless/deploy_cpu.sh serverless/pytorch/facebookresearch/detectron2/retinanet
      

      To debug python code inside a container you have to publish the port (in this tutorial it is 5678). Nuclio deploy command doesn’t support that and we have to workaround it using SSH port forwarding.

      • Install SSH server on your host machine using sudo apt install openssh-server
      • In /etc/ssh/sshd_config host file set GatewayPorts yes
      • Restart ssh service to apply changes using sudo systemctl restart ssh.service

      Next step is to install ssh client inside the container and run port forwarding. In the snippet below instead of user and ipaddress provide username and IP address of your host (usually IP address starts from 192.168.). You will need to confirm that you want to connect to your host computer and enter your password. Keep the terminal open after that.

      docker exec -it nuclio-nuclio-pth-facebookresearch-detectron2-retinanet-r101 /bin/bash
      apt update && apt install -y ssh
      ssh -R 5678:localhost:5678 user@ipaddress
      

      See how the latest command looks like in my case:

      root@2d6cceec8f70:/opt/nuclio# ssh -R 5678:localhost:5678 nmanovic@192.168.50.188
      The authenticity of host '192.168.50.188 (192.168.50.188)' can't be established.
      ECDSA key fingerprint is SHA256:0sD6IWi+FKAhtUXr2TroHqyjcnYRIGLLx/wkGaZeRuo.
      Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/[fingerprint])? yes
      Warning: Permanently added '192.168.50.188' (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts.
      nmanovic@192.168.50.188's password:
      Welcome to Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS (GNU/Linux 5.8.0-53-generic x86_64)
      
       * Documentation:  https://help.ubuntu.com
       * Management:     https://landscape.canonical.com
       * Support:        https://ubuntu.com/advantage
      
      223 updates can be applied immediately.
      132 of these updates are standard security updates.
      To see these additional updates run: apt list --upgradable
      
      Your Hardware Enablement Stack (HWE) is supported until April 2025.
      Last login: Fri Jun 25 16:39:04 2021 from 172.17.0.5
      [setupvars.sh] OpenVINO environment initialized
      nmanovic@nmanovic-dl-node:~$
      

      Finally, add the configuration below into your launch.json. Open Visual Studio Code and run Serverless Debug configuration, set a breakpoint in main.py and try to call the serverless function from CVAT UI. The breakpoint should be triggered in Visual Studio Code and it should be possible to inspect variables and debug code.

      {
        "name": "Serverless Debug",
        "type": "python",
        "request": "attach",
        "connect": {
          "host": "localhost",
          "port": 5678
        },
        "pathMappings": [
          {
            "localRoot": "${workspaceFolder}/serverless/pytorch/facebookresearch/detectron2/retinanet/nuclio",
            "remoteRoot": "/opt/nuclio"
          }
        ]
      }
      

      VS Code debug RetinaNet

      Note: In case of changes in the source code, need to re-deploy the function and initiate port forwarding again.

      Troubleshooting

      First of all need to check that you are using the recommended version of Nuclio framework. In my case it is 1.5.16 but you need to check the installation manual.

      nuctl version
      
      Client version:
      "Label: 1.5.16, Git commit: ae43a6a560c2bec42d7ccfdf6e8e11a1e3cc3774, OS: linux, Arch: amd64, Go version: go1.14.3"
      

      Check that Nuclio dashboard is running and its version corresponds to nuctl.

      docker ps --filter NAME=^nuclio$
      
      CONTAINER ID   IMAGE                                   COMMAND                  CREATED       STATUS                    PORTS                                               NAMES
      7ab0c076c927   quay.io/nuclio/dashboard:1.5.16-amd64   "/docker-entrypoint.…"   6 weeks ago   Up 46 minutes (healthy)   80/tcp, 0.0.0.0:8070->8070/tcp, :::8070->8070/tcp   nuclio
      

      Be sure that the model, which doesn’t work, is healthy. In my case Inside Outside Guidance is not running.

      docker ps --filter NAME=iog
      
      CONTAINER ID   IMAGE     COMMAND   CREATED   STATUS    PORTS     NAMES
      

      Let’s run it. Go to the root of CVAT repository and run the deploying command.

      serverless/deploy_cpu.sh serverless/pytorch/shiyinzhang/iog
      
      Deploying serverless/pytorch/shiyinzhang/iog function...
      21.07.06 12:49:08.763                     nuctl (I) Deploying function {"name": ""}
      21.07.06 12:49:08.763                     nuctl (I) Building {"versionInfo": "Label: 1.5.16, Git commit: ae43a6a560c2bec42d7ccfdf6e8e11a1e3cc3774, OS: linux, Arch: amd64, Go version: go1.14.3", "name": ""}
      21.07.06 12:49:09.085                     nuctl (I) Cleaning up before deployment {"functionName": "pth-shiyinzhang-iog"}
      21.07.06 12:49:09.162                     nuctl (I) Function already exists, deleting function containers {"functionName": "pth-shiyinzhang-iog"}
      21.07.06 12:49:09.230                     nuctl (I) Staging files and preparing base images
      21.07.06 12:49:09.232                     nuctl (I) Building processor image {"imageName": "cvat/pth.shiyinzhang.iog:latest"}
      21.07.06 12:49:09.232     nuctl.platform.docker (I) Pulling image {"imageName": "quay.io/nuclio/handler-builder-python-onbuild:1.5.16-amd64"}
      21.07.06 12:49:12.525     nuctl.platform.docker (I) Pulling image {"imageName": "quay.io/nuclio/uhttpc:0.0.1-amd64"}
      21.07.06 12:49:16.222            nuctl.platform (I) Building docker image {"image": "cvat/pth.shiyinzhang.iog:latest"}
      21.07.06 12:49:16.555            nuctl.platform (I) Pushing docker image into registry {"image": "cvat/pth.shiyinzhang.iog:latest", "registry": ""}
      21.07.06 12:49:16.555            nuctl.platform (I) Docker image was successfully built and pushed into docker registry {"image": "cvat/pth.shiyinzhang.iog:latest"}
      21.07.06 12:49:16.555                     nuctl (I) Build complete {"result": {"Image":"cvat/pth.shiyinzhang.iog:latest","UpdatedFunctionConfig":{"metadata":{"name":"pth-shiyinzhang-iog","namespace":"nuclio","labels":{"nuclio.io/project-name":"cvat"},"annotations":{"framework":"pytorch","min_pos_points":"1","name":"IOG","spec":"","startswith_box":"true","type":"interactor"}},"spec":{"description":"Interactive Object Segmentation with Inside-Outside Guidance","handler":"main:handler","runtime":"python:3.6","env":[{"name":"PYTHONPATH","value":"/opt/nuclio/iog"}],"resources":{},"image":"cvat/pth.shiyinzhang.iog:latest","targetCPU":75,"triggers":{"myHttpTrigger":{"class":"","kind":"http","name":"myHttpTrigger","maxWorkers":2,"workerAvailabilityTimeoutMilliseconds":10000,"attributes":{"maxRequestBodySize":33554432}}},"volumes":[{"volume":{"name":"volume-1","hostPath":{"path":"/home/nmanovic/Workspace/cvat/serverless/common"}},"volumeMount":{"name":"volume-1","mountPath":"/opt/nuclio/common"}}],"build":{"image":"cvat/pth.shiyinzhang.iog","baseImage":"continuumio/miniconda3","directives":{"preCopy":[{"kind":"WORKDIR","value":"/opt/nuclio"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"conda create -y -n iog python=3.6"},{"kind":"SHELL","value":"[\"conda\", \"run\", \"-n\", \"iog\", \"/bin/bash\", \"-c\"]"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"conda install -y -c anaconda curl"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"conda install -y pytorch=0.4 torchvision=0.2 -c pytorch"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"conda install -y -c conda-forge pycocotools opencv scipy"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"git clone https://github.com/shiyinzhang/Inside-Outside-Guidance.git iog"},{"kind":"WORKDIR","value":"/opt/nuclio/iog"},{"kind":"ENV","value":"fileid=1Lm1hhMhhjjnNwO4Pf7SC6tXLayH2iH0l"},{"kind":"ENV","value":"filename=IOG_PASCAL_SBD.pth"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"curl -c ./cookie -s -L \"https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download\u0026id=${fileid}\""},{"kind":"RUN","value":"echo \"/download/ {print \\$NF}\" \u003e confirm_code.awk"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"curl -Lb ./cookie \"https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download\u0026confirm=`awk -f confirm_code.awk ./cookie`\u0026id=${fileid}\" -o ${filename}"},{"kind":"WORKDIR","value":"/opt/nuclio"},{"kind":"ENTRYPOINT","value":"[\"conda\", \"run\", \"-n\", \"iog\"]"}]},"codeEntryType":"image"},"platform":{"attributes":{"mountMode":"volume","restartPolicy":{"maximumRetryCount":3,"name":"always"}}},"readinessTimeoutSeconds":60,"securityContext":{},"eventTimeout":"30s"}}}}
      21.07.06 12:49:17.422     nuctl.platform.docker (W) Failed to run container {"err": "stdout:\n1373cb432a178a3606685b5975e40a0755bc7958786c182304f5d1bbc0873ceb\ndocker: Error response from daemon: driver failed programming external connectivity on endpoint nuclio-nuclio-pth-shiyinzhang-iog (df68e7b4a60e553ee3079f1f1622b050cc958bd50f2cd359a20164d8a417d0ea): Bind for 0.0.0.0:49154 failed: port is already allocated.\n\nstderr:\n", "errVerbose": "\nError - exit status 125\n    /nuclio/pkg/cmdrunner/shellrunner.go:96\n\nCall stack:\nstdout:\n1373cb432a178a3606685b5975e40a0755bc7958786c182304f5d1bbc0873ceb\ndocker: Error response from daemon: driver failed programming external connectivity on endpoint nuclio-nuclio-pth-shiyinzhang-iog (df68e7b4a60e553ee3079f1f1622b050cc958bd50f2cd359a20164d8a417d0ea): Bind for 0.0.0.0:49154 failed: port is already allocated.\n\nstderr:\n\n    /nuclio/pkg/cmdrunner/shellrunner.go:96\nstdout:\n1373cb432a178a3606685b5975e40a0755bc7958786c182304f5d1bbc0873ceb\ndocker: Error response from daemon: driver failed programming external connectivity on endpoint nuclio-nuclio-pth-shiyinzhang-iog (df68e7b4a60e553ee3079f1f1622b050cc958bd50f2cd359a20164d8a417d0ea): Bind for 0.0.0.0:49154 failed: port is already allocated.\n\nstderr:\n", "errCauses": [{"error": "exit status 125"}], "stdout": "1373cb432a178a3606685b5975e40a0755bc7958786c182304f5d1bbc0873ceb\ndocker: Error response from daemon: driver failed programming external connectivity on endpoint nuclio-nuclio-pth-shiyinzhang-iog (df68e7b4a60e553ee3079f1f1622b050cc958bd50f2cd359a20164d8a417d0ea): Bind for 0.0.0.0:49154 failed: port is already allocated.\n", "stderr": ""}
      21.07.06 12:49:17.422                     nuctl (W) Failed to create a function; setting the function status {"err": "Failed to run a Docker container", "errVerbose": "\nError - exit status 125\n    /nuclio/pkg/cmdrunner/shellrunner.go:96\n\nCall stack:\nstdout:\n1373cb432a178a3606685b5975e40a0755bc7958786c182304f5d1bbc0873ceb\ndocker: Error response from daemon: driver failed programming external connectivity on endpoint nuclio-nuclio-pth-shiyinzhang-iog (df68e7b4a60e553ee3079f1f1622b050cc958bd50f2cd359a20164d8a417d0ea): Bind for 0.0.0.0:49154 failed: port is already allocated.\n\nstderr:\n\n    /nuclio/pkg/cmdrunner/shellrunner.go:96\nFailed to run a Docker container\n    /nuclio/pkg/platform/local/platform.go:653\nFailed to run a Docker container", "errCauses": [{"error": "stdout:\n1373cb432a178a3606685b5975e40a0755bc7958786c182304f5d1bbc0873ceb\ndocker: Error response from daemon: driver failed programming external connectivity on endpoint nuclio-nuclio-pth-shiyinzhang-iog (df68e7b4a60e553ee3079f1f1622b050cc958bd50f2cd359a20164d8a417d0ea): Bind for 0.0.0.0:49154 failed: port is already allocated.\n\nstderr:\n", "errorVerbose": "\nError - exit status 125\n    /nuclio/pkg/cmdrunner/shellrunner.go:96\n\nCall stack:\nstdout:\n1373cb432a178a3606685b5975e40a0755bc7958786c182304f5d1bbc0873ceb\ndocker: Error response from daemon: driver failed programming external connectivity on endpoint nuclio-nuclio-pth-shiyinzhang-iog (df68e7b4a60e553ee3079f1f1622b050cc958bd50f2cd359a20164d8a417d0ea): Bind for 0.0.0.0:49154 failed: port is already allocated.\n\nstderr:\n\n    /nuclio/pkg/cmdrunner/shellrunner.go:96\nstdout:\n1373cb432a178a3606685b5975e40a0755bc7958786c182304f5d1bbc0873ceb\ndocker: Error response from daemon: driver failed programming external connectivity on endpoint nuclio-nuclio-pth-shiyinzhang-iog (df68e7b4a60e553ee3079f1f1622b050cc958bd50f2cd359a20164d8a417d0ea): Bind for 0.0.0.0:49154 failed: port is already allocated.\n\nstderr:\n", "errorCauses": [{"error": "exit status 125"}]}]}
      
      Error - exit status 125
          /nuclio/pkg/cmdrunner/shellrunner.go:96
      
      Call stack:
      stdout:
      1373cb432a178a3606685b5975e40a0755bc7958786c182304f5d1bbc0873ceb
      docker: Error response from daemon: driver failed programming external connectivity on endpoint nuclio-nuclio-pth-shiyinzhang-iog (df68e7b4a60e553ee3079f1f1622b050cc958bd50f2cd359a20164d8a417d0ea): Bind for 0.0.0.0:49154 failed: port is already allocated.
      
      stderr:
      
          /nuclio/pkg/cmdrunner/shellrunner.go:96
      Failed to run a Docker container
          /nuclio/pkg/platform/local/platform.go:653
      Failed to deploy function
          ...//nuclio/pkg/platform/abstract/platform.go:182
        NAMESPACE |                      NAME                      | PROJECT | STATE | NODE PORT | REPLICAS
        nuclio    | openvino-dextr                                 | cvat    | ready |     49154 | 1/1
        nuclio    | pth-foolwood-siammask                          | cvat    | ready |     49155 | 1/1
        nuclio    | pth-facebookresearch-detectron2-retinanet-r101 | cvat    | ready |     49155 | 1/1
        nuclio    | pth-shiyinzhang-iog                            | cvat    | error |         0 | 1/1
      

      In this case the container was built some time ago and the port 49154 was assigned by Nuclio. Now the port is used by openvino-dextr as we can see in logs. To prove our hypothesis just need to run a couple of docker commands:

      docker container ls -a | grep iog
      
      eb0c1ee46630   cvat/pth.shiyinzhang.iog:latest                              "conda run -n iog pr…"   9 minutes ago       Created                                                                          nuclio-nuclio-pth-shiyinzhang-iog
      
      docker inspect eb0c1ee46630 | grep 49154
      
                  "Error": "driver failed programming external connectivity on endpoint nuclio-nuclio-pth-shiyinzhang-iog (02384290f91b2216162b1603322dadee426afe7f439d3d090f598af5d4863b2d): Bind for 0.0.0.0:49154 failed: port is already allocated",
                              "HostPort": "49154"
      

      To solve the problem let’s just remove the previous container for the function. In this case it is eb0c1ee46630. After that the deploying command works as expected.

      docker container rm eb0c1ee46630
      
      eb0c1ee46630
      
      serverless/deploy_cpu.sh serverless/pytorch/shiyinzhang/iog
      
      Deploying serverless/pytorch/shiyinzhang/iog function...
      21.07.06 13:09:52.934                     nuctl (I) Deploying function {"name": ""}
      21.07.06 13:09:52.934                     nuctl (I) Building {"versionInfo": "Label: 1.5.16, Git commit: ae43a6a560c2bec42d7ccfdf6e8e11a1e3cc3774, OS: linux, Arch: amd64, Go version: go1.14.3", "name": ""}
      21.07.06 13:09:53.282                     nuctl (I) Cleaning up before deployment {"functionName": "pth-shiyinzhang-iog"}
      21.07.06 13:09:53.341                     nuctl (I) Staging files and preparing base images
      21.07.06 13:09:53.342                     nuctl (I) Building processor image {"imageName": "cvat/pth.shiyinzhang.iog:latest"}
      21.07.06 13:09:53.342     nuctl.platform.docker (I) Pulling image {"imageName": "quay.io/nuclio/handler-builder-python-onbuild:1.5.16-amd64"}
      21.07.06 13:09:56.633     nuctl.platform.docker (I) Pulling image {"imageName": "quay.io/nuclio/uhttpc:0.0.1-amd64"}
      21.07.06 13:10:00.163            nuctl.platform (I) Building docker image {"image": "cvat/pth.shiyinzhang.iog:latest"}
      21.07.06 13:10:00.452            nuctl.platform (I) Pushing docker image into registry {"image": "cvat/pth.shiyinzhang.iog:latest", "registry": ""}
      21.07.06 13:10:00.452            nuctl.platform (I) Docker image was successfully built and pushed into docker registry {"image": "cvat/pth.shiyinzhang.iog:latest"}
      21.07.06 13:10:00.452                     nuctl (I) Build complete {"result": {"Image":"cvat/pth.shiyinzhang.iog:latest","UpdatedFunctionConfig":{"metadata":{"name":"pth-shiyinzhang-iog","namespace":"nuclio","labels":{"nuclio.io/project-name":"cvat"},"annotations":{"framework":"pytorch","min_pos_points":"1","name":"IOG","spec":"","startswith_box":"true","type":"interactor"}},"spec":{"description":"Interactive Object Segmentation with Inside-Outside Guidance","handler":"main:handler","runtime":"python:3.6","env":[{"name":"PYTHONPATH","value":"/opt/nuclio/iog"}],"resources":{},"image":"cvat/pth.shiyinzhang.iog:latest","targetCPU":75,"triggers":{"myHttpTrigger":{"class":"","kind":"http","name":"myHttpTrigger","maxWorkers":2,"workerAvailabilityTimeoutMilliseconds":10000,"attributes":{"maxRequestBodySize":33554432}}},"volumes":[{"volume":{"name":"volume-1","hostPath":{"path":"/home/nmanovic/Workspace/cvat/serverless/common"}},"volumeMount":{"name":"volume-1","mountPath":"/opt/nuclio/common"}}],"build":{"image":"cvat/pth.shiyinzhang.iog","baseImage":"continuumio/miniconda3","directives":{"preCopy":[{"kind":"WORKDIR","value":"/opt/nuclio"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"conda create -y -n iog python=3.6"},{"kind":"SHELL","value":"[\"conda\", \"run\", \"-n\", \"iog\", \"/bin/bash\", \"-c\"]"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"conda install -y -c anaconda curl"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"conda install -y pytorch=0.4 torchvision=0.2 -c pytorch"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"conda install -y -c conda-forge pycocotools opencv scipy"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"git clone https://github.com/shiyinzhang/Inside-Outside-Guidance.git iog"},{"kind":"WORKDIR","value":"/opt/nuclio/iog"},{"kind":"ENV","value":"fileid=1Lm1hhMhhjjnNwO4Pf7SC6tXLayH2iH0l"},{"kind":"ENV","value":"filename=IOG_PASCAL_SBD.pth"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"curl -c ./cookie -s -L \"https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download\u0026id=${fileid}\""},{"kind":"RUN","value":"echo \"/download/ {print \\$NF}\" \u003e confirm_code.awk"},{"kind":"RUN","value":"curl -Lb ./cookie \"https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download\u0026confirm=`awk -f confirm_code.awk ./cookie`\u0026id=${fileid}\" -o ${filename}"},{"kind":"WORKDIR","value":"/opt/nuclio"},{"kind":"ENTRYPOINT","value":"[\"conda\", \"run\", \"-n\", \"iog\"]"}]},"codeEntryType":"image"},"platform":{"attributes":{"mountMode":"volume","restartPolicy":{"maximumRetryCount":3,"name":"always"}}},"readinessTimeoutSeconds":60,"securityContext":{},"eventTimeout":"30s"}}}}
      21.07.06 13:10:01.604            nuctl.platform (I) Waiting for function to be ready {"timeout": 60}
      21.07.06 13:10:02.976                     nuctl (I) Function deploy complete {"functionName": "pth-shiyinzhang-iog", "httpPort": 49159}
        NAMESPACE |                      NAME                      | PROJECT | STATE | NODE PORT | REPLICAS
        nuclio    | openvino-dextr                                 | cvat    | ready |     49154 | 1/1
        nuclio    | pth-foolwood-siammask                          | cvat    | ready |     49155 | 1/1
        nuclio    | pth-saic-vul-fbrs                              | cvat    | ready |     49156 | 1/1
        nuclio    | pth-facebookresearch-detectron2-retinanet-r101 | cvat    | ready |     49155 | 1/1
        nuclio    | pth-shiyinzhang-iog                            | cvat    | ready |     49159 | 1/1
      

      When you investigate an issue with a serverless function, it is extremely useful to look at logs. Just run a couple of commands like docker logs <container>.

      docker logs cvat
      
      2021-07-06 13:44:54,699 DEBG 'runserver' stderr output:
      [Tue Jul 06 13:44:54.699431 2021] [wsgi:error] [pid 625:tid 140010969868032] [remote 172.28.0.3:40972] [2021-07-06 13:44:54,699] ERROR django.request: Internal Server Error: /api/lambda/functions/pth-shiyinzhang-iog
      
      2021-07-06 13:44:54,700 DEBG 'runserver' stderr output:
      [Tue Jul 06 13:44:54.699712 2021] [wsgi:error] [pid 625:tid 140010969868032] [remote 172.28.0.3:40972] ERROR - 2021-07-06 13:44:54,699 - log - Internal Server Error: /api/lambda/functions/pth-shiyinzhang-iog
      
      docker container ls --filter name=iog
      
      CONTAINER ID   IMAGE                             COMMAND                  CREATED       STATUS                 PORTS                                         NAMES
      3b6ef9a9f3e2   cvat/pth.shiyinzhang.iog:latest   "conda run -n iog pr…"   4 hours ago   Up 4 hours (healthy)   0.0.0.0:49159->8080/tcp, :::49159->8080/tcp   nuclio-nuclio-pth-shiyinzhang-iog
      
      docker logs nuclio-nuclio-pth-shiyinzhang-iog
      

      If before model deployment you see that the NODE PORT is 0, you need to assign it manually. Add the port: 32001 attribute to the function.yaml file of each model, before you deploy the model. Different ports should be prescribed for different models.

      triggers:
      myHttpTrigger:
          maxWorkers: 1
          kind: 'http'
          workerAvailabilityTimeoutMilliseconds: 10000
          attributes:
      +     port: 32001
            maxRequestBodySize: 33554432 # 32MB
      

      Installation serverless functions on Windows 10 with using the Ubuntu subsystem

      If you encounter a problem running serverless functions on Windows 10, you can use the Ubuntu subsystem, for this do the following:

      1. Install WSL 2 and Docker Desktop as described in installation manual

      2. Install Ubuntu 18.04 from Microsoft store.

      3. Enable integration for Ubuntu-18.04 in the settings of Docker Desktop in the Resources WSL integration tab:

        Docker WSL integration Ubuntu 18.04

      4. Then you can download and install nuctl on Ubuntu, using the automatic annotation guide.

      5. Install git and clone repository on Ubuntu, as described in the installation manual.

      6. After that, run the commands from this tutorial through Ubuntu.