Manual

• 1: Basics
• 1.1: Registration & Account Access
• 1.2: Create annotation task
• 1.3: Create multi tasks
• 1.4: CVAT Annotation Interface
• 1.4.1: Navigation bar & Menu
• 1.4.2: Controls sidebar
• 1.4.3: Objects sidebar
• 1.4.4: CVAT Workspace
• 1.5: Jobs page
• 1.6: Tasks page
• 1.7: Task details
• 1.8: Requests page
• 1.9: 3D task workspace
• 1.10: Standard 3D mode (basics)
• 1.11: Settings
• 1.12: Types of shapes
• 1.13: Shape mode (basics)
• 1.14: Track mode (basics)
• 1.15: 3D Object annotation
• 1.16: Attribute annotation mode (basics)
• 1.17: Vocabulary
• 1.18: Cloud storages page
• 1.19: Attach cloud storage
• 2: Advanced
• 2.1: Projects page
• 2.2: Organization
• 2.3: Search
• 2.4: Shape mode (advanced)
• 2.5: Single Shape
• 2.6: CVAT User roles
• 2.7: Track mode (advanced)
• 2.8: 3D Object annotation (advanced)
• 2.9: Attribute annotation mode (advanced)
• 2.10: Annotation with rectangles
• 2.11: Annotation with polygons
• 2.11.1: Manual drawing
• 2.11.2: Drawing using automatic borders
• 2.11.3: Edit polygon
• 2.11.4: Track mode with polygons
• 2.11.5: Creating masks
• 2.12: Annotation with polylines
• 2.13: Annotation with points
• 2.13.1: Points in shape mode
• 2.13.2: Linear interpolation with one point
• 2.14: Annotation with ellipses
• 2.15: Annotation with cuboids
• 2.15.1: Creating the cuboid
• 2.15.2: Editing the cuboid
• 2.16: Annotation with skeletons
• 2.17: Annotation with brush tool
• 2.18: Annotation with tags
• 2.19: Models
• 2.20: CVAT Analytics and QA in Cloud
• 2.20.1: Automated QA, Review & Honeypot
• 2.20.2: Manual QA and Review
• 2.20.3: CVAT Team Performance & Monitoring
• 2.21: OpenCV and AI Tools
• 2.22: Automatic annotation
• 2.23: Specification for annotators
• 2.24: Backup Task and Project
• 2.25: Frame deleting
• 2.26: Join and slice tools
• 2.27: Import datasets and upload annotation
• 2.28: Export annotations and data from CVAT
• 2.28.1: CVAT for image
• 2.28.2: Datumaro
• 2.28.3: LabelMe
• 2.28.4: MOT
• 2.28.5: MOTS
• 2.28.6: COCO
• 2.28.7: COCO Keypoints
• 2.28.8: Pascal VOC
• 2.28.9: Segmentation Mask
• 2.28.10: YOLO
• 2.28.11: YOLOv8
• 2.28.12: YOLOv8-Classification
• 2.28.13: ImageNet
• 2.28.14: Wider Face
• 2.28.15: CamVid
• 2.28.16: VGGFace2
• 2.28.17: Market-1501
• 2.28.18: ICDAR13/15
• 2.28.19: Open Images
• 2.28.20: Cityscapes
• 2.28.21: KITTI
• 2.28.22: LFW
• 2.29: XML annotation format
• 2.30: Shortcuts
• 2.31: Filter
• 2.32: Contextual images
• 2.33: Shape grouping
• 2.34: Dataset Manifest
• 2.35: Data preparation on the fly
• 2.36: Serverless tutorial

1 - Basics

1.1 - Registration & Account Access

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

See:

• User registration
• User registration with social accounts
• Account access
• Password reset
• Change password

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.

   

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

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

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?

   

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.

   

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.

   

1.2 - Create 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.

See:

• Create a task
  • Label shape
  • Add an attribute
  • Select files
  • Editing labels in RAW format
  • Data formats for a 3D task
• Advanced configuration

Create a task

To create a new task, open task configurator:

And specify the following parameters:

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

   

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

   

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

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

   

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

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

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

   

7. (Optional) 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.

  

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.

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:

To add an attribute, do the following:

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

   

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:

   • 

   • 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.

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: . 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
• 3D pointcloud
• 3D Option 1
• 3D Option 2

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

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

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

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

Advanced configuration

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

The following parameters are available:

To save and open the task, 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

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
• Example
• Errors
• Advanced configuration

Create multi tasks

To add several tasks in one go, open the task 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.

   

   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 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:

1.4.1 - Navigation bar & Menu

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

See:

• Menu
• Navigation bar
  • Save, Undo, Done
  • Navigation controls
• Job information and Annotation Mode switcher

Menu

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.

Navigation bar

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.

Navigation controls

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

Function	Description
Go to the first/last frame	Navigate to the first or the last frame of the sequence.
Go back with a step/Go next with a step	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	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): The default setting moves to the next or previous frame (step size is 1 frame). Move to the next or previous frame that contains objects (e.g., filtered). For more information, refer to Filters. Move to the next or previous frame without annotations. Use this option to quickly locate missed frames. .
Play/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	Enter the number of the frame you want to go to and press Enter.
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	The fullscreen player mode. The keyboard shortcut is F11.
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 Shape – Single shape annotation mode. Tag annotation- annotation with Tags Review – Manual QA mode.

1.4.2 - Controls sidebar

Navigation

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

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 () creates a copy of the object on N subsequent frames at the same position.
  • Propagate backward () 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

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.

See:

• Image settings in CVAT
  • Adding grid overlay to image in CVAT
  • Changing color settings of image in CVAT
• Adding layers and Z-axis slider
• Interacting with Objects

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 () icon located at the bottom of the workspace.

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:

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

Saturation describes the intensity of the color.

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

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.

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.

  

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

  

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

1.6 - 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

Push Open button to go to task details.

1.7 - Task details

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 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:

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

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:

• 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:

• 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

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

See:

• Navigation
• Annotation with cuboids
  • Annotation with shapes
  • Tracking with cuboids

Navigation

The 3D annotation canvas looks like the following

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:

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.

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.

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

5. (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.

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

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

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

7. 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)

• 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

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:

• Track mode

Annotation

Mode for images annotation, which uses shape objects.

Related sections:

• Shape mode

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:

• Creating an annotation task

3D

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

Related sections:

• 3D task workspace
• Standard 3D mode
• 3D Object annotation

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

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

Click the + button to attach a new cloud storage.

1.19 - Attach cloud storage

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
  • Upload data
  • Access permissions
    • Authenticated access
    • Anonymous access
  • Attach AWS S3 storage
  • AWS S3 manifest file
  • Video tutorial: Add AWS S3 as Cloud Storage in CVAT
• Google Cloud Storage
  • Create a bucket
  • Upload data
  • Access permissions
    • Authenticated access
    • Anonymous access
  • Attach Google Cloud Storage
  • Video tutorial: Add Google Cloud Storage as Cloud Storage in CVAT
• Microsoft Azure Blob Storage
  • Create a bucket
  • Create a container
  • Upload data
  • SAS token and connection string
  • Personal use
  • Attach Azure Blob Storage
  • Video tutorial: Add Microsoft Azure Blob Storage as Cloud Storage in CVAT
• Prepare the dataset

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:

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>

3. Copy the content of the bucket to a folder on your computer:

aws s3 cp <s3://bucket-name> <yourfolder> --recursive

4. 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>

5. 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

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:

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.

9. 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.

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

11. Click Create. Deployment will start.

12. 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

3. Enter the name of the container.
4. (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.
5. 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:

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

2.1 - Projects page

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

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

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
• Create new organization
  • Switching between organizations
• Organization page
• Invite members into organization: menu and roles
  • Inviting members to Organization
  • Invitations list
  • Resending and removing invitations
• Delete organization

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.

   

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:

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

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)

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

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
• Annotating in Single Shape mode
• Query parameters
• Video tutorial

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.

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

The Single Shape annotation mode has the following fields:

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:

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:

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
• Organization roles in CVAT.ai
• Job Stage

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:

Organization roles in CVAT.ai

Organization Roles are available only within the CVAT Organization.

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

There are the following roles available in CVAT:

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 can be:

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

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

2.7 - Track mode (advanced)

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)

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)

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:

• Shape mode (basics)
• Track mode (basics)
• Shape mode (advanced)
• Track mode (advanced)

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

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:

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

Exported masks:

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):

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

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

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

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

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

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
  • Skeleton Configurator
  • Configuring Skeleton points
  • Adding Skeleton labels manually
• Adding Skeleton labels from the model
• Annotation with Skeletons
• Automatic annotation with Skeletons
• Editing skeletons on the canvas
• Editing skeletons on the sidebar

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:

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

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
• Annotation with brush
• Annotation with polygon-to-mask
• Remove underlying pixels
• AI Tools
• Import and export

Brush tool menu

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

It has the following elements:

Element	Description
	Save mask saves the created mask. The saved mask will appear on the object sidebar
	Save mask and continue adds a new mask to the object sidebar and allows you to draw a new one immediately.
	Brush adds new mask/ new regions to the previously added mask).
	Eraser removes part of the mask.
	Polygon selection tool. Selection will become a mask.
	Remove polygon selection subtracts part of the polygon selection.
	Brush size in pixels. Note: Visible only when Brush or Eraser are selected.
	Brush shape with two options: circle and square. Note: Visible only when Brush or Eraser are selected.
	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.
	Hide mask. When drawing or editing a mask, you can enable this feature to temporarily hide the mask, allowing you to see the objects underneath more clearly.
	Label that will be assigned to the newly created mask
	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 .

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

   

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

   

4. After you applied the mask, on the top menu bar click Save mask
   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 .

Annotation with polygon-to-mask

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

1. From the controls sidebar, select Brush .

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

   

3. In the brush tool menu, select Polygon .

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

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

   

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

7. Click Save mask 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 .

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.

AI Tools

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

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:

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:
  • detector - used for automatic annotation (available in detectors and automatic annotation)
  • interactor - used for semi-automatic shape annotation (available in interactors)
  • tracker - used for semi-automatic track annotation (available in trackers)
  • reid - used to combine individual objects into a track (available in automatic annotation)
• 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

2.20.1 - Automated QA, Review & Honeypot

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
• Managing Ground Truth jobs: Import, Export, and Deletion
  • Import
  • Export
  • Delete
• Assessing data quality with Ground truth jobs
  • Quality data
  • Annotation quality settings
  • GT conflicts in the CVAT interface
• Annotation quality & Honeypot video tutorial

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 +.

   

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

   

   • 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.

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.

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.

Quality data

The Analytics page has the following fields:

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.

Annotation quality settings have the following parameters:

GT conflicts in the CVAT interface

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

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.

Annotation quality & Honeypot video tutorial

This video demonstrates the process:

2.20.2 - Manual QA and Review

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
  • Assigning reviewer
  • Reporting issues
  • Quick issue
  • Assigning corrector
  • Correcting reported issues
• Review and report issues: review and correct mode
• Issues navigation and interface
  • Issues tab
  • Issues workspace
  • Issues comments
• Manual QA complete video tutorial

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:

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.

   

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.

   

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.

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.

   

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.

   

4. Correct annotation.

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

   

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

   

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.

   

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:

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

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
• Performance video tutorial

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 ().
3. From the menu, select View analytics > Performance tab.

The following dashboard will open:

The Performance dashboard has the following elements:

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

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
  • AI tools: annotate with interactors
  • AI tools: add extra points
  • AI tools: delete points
  • OpenCV: intelligent scissors
  • Settings
  • Interactors models
• Detectors
  • Labels matching
  • Annotate with detectors
  • Detectors models
• Trackers
  • AI tools: annotate with trackers
  • OpenCV: annotate with trackers
  • When tracking
  • Trackers models
• OpenCV: histogram equalization

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 , 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 OpenCV 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

• On how to adjust the polygon, see Objects sidebar.

• For more information about polygons in general, see Annotation with polygons.

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

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 , 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

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 , and go to the Trackers tab.

   
   

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 OpenCV and wait for the library to load.

   
   

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

   
   

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.

  

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

  

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

  

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
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
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

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 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:

• Pre-installed models.
• Models integrated from Hugging Face and Roboflow.
• Self-hosted models deployed with Nuclio.

The following table describes the available options:

See:

• Running Automatic annotation
• Labels matching
• Models
• Adding models from Hugging Face and Roboflow

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.

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:

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

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
  • Editing rights
• Adding specification to Task
  • Editing rights
• Access to specification for annotators
• Markdown editor guide
• Specification for annotators’ video tutorial

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.

3. 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

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.

   

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.

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().

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.

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

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:

• Task Backup Structure
• Project Backup 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

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

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
• Slicing polygons and masks

Joining masks

The Join masks tool (), 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.

To join masks, do the following:

1. From the Edit block, select Join masks .
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 masks (J) to execute the join operation.

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

Slicing polygons and masks

The Slice mask/polygon () 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.

To slice mask or polygon, do the following:

1. From the Edit block, select Slice mask/polygon .
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.

2.27 - Import datasets and upload annotation

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:

   • Standard CVAT formats:

     • CVAT for video choose if the task is created in interpolation mode.

     • CVAT for images choose if a task is created in annotation mode.

       
       

   • And also in formats from the list of annotation formats supported by CVAT.

   • For 3D tasks, the following formats are available:

     • Kitti Raw Format 1.0
     • Sly Point Cloud Format 1.0 - Supervisely Point Cloud dataset
   
   

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

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
• Exporting dataset in CVAT
  • Exporting dataset from Task
  • Exporting dataset from Job
• Data export video tutorial

Data export formats

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

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.

   

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.

   

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.

   

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

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:

• Format specification
• Dataset examples

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

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:

• Datumaro specification

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

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
• Dataset examples

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

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 sequence paper
• Dataset examples

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

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 Specification
• Dataset examples

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

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 Object Detection site
• Format specification
• Dataset examples

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

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 Keypoint site
• Format specification
• Example of the archive

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

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
• Format specification
• Dataset examples

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.