Annotation Studio Overview

Dataloop annotation studio (2.0) is designed to enable faster and more accurate annotation work than ever before. Built with the experience of tens of millions of annotations, it encapsulates many features, some are very innovative, and all have been given careful thinking.

The annotation studio is constructed of the following sections:

1. Main Area - image/video item, also referred to as the canvas area.
2. Left Panel - for label and tool selection, and tool options.
3. Right Side - has 2 panels
   A. Annotation Panel - everything about annotations. Annotations list with grouping actions, advanced search box, sorting and filtering tools, annotation actions and applications, and attributes.
   B. Item Panel - everything about the item itself. Import/export options, access to meta-data and item description
4. Top-bar - general settings menu, with access to image-related features such as brightness, contrast, smoothing control and other features.
5. Item Control & Navigation Bar (bottom bar) - zooming/fitting options, browsing between items, save/discard button, and gallery view that allows jumping to items based on their thumbnail.

Zooming And Fitting

Hover the mouse over the image and use the mouse scroll to zoom in and out of the image. Alternatively, use the zoom + and - signs under the image, zoom in predefined steps.
Use the ‘Fit to screen’ option to reset your view back to 100% zoom.

Attributes Preview

Turning on Attributes Preview allows you to display on the selected annotation's controller the annotation's attribute values.

Select annotations by clicking on them or by selecting them from the annotation list under the Annotations tab in the left panel.

The number of mandatory attributes that are left without values (red flags), if any, will be displayed above the Attribues Preview icon.

To enable/disable Attributes Preview, click on the "A" icon.

Browsing Items

Use the right/left icons to browse between items. Open the images gallery to see thumbnails that allow you to jump directly to items of interest.

Save/Discard and Setting Status

The annotation studio is accessible from several places, setting it in different contexts:

1. From the Dataset Browser – the user can annotate and save work.
2. From Workflow > Task/Assignment – the user is expected to set the item’s status when completing work by clicking on Complete (or other available statuses). Work can be saved by clicking the save icon.

The COMPLETE button will be replaced with a Select Action dropdown list if more statuses are added to the task (e.g., through the pipeline).

General Settings

Users can access the general-settings area to set their preference of view and annotation related settings, including:

Opacity, brightness and contrast

Set these parameters to adjust them for your work Reset the value easily by clicking on their name/header.

Opacity can also be altered for specific tools.

Keep Zoom and Position

Check this option to maintain zoom Level and pan position between Images.
Increase productivity when working on high-resolution sequential images, such as aerial/drone photos or video frames - keeping zoom and pan parameters for items of the same size saves resetting time.

Pixel Measurement

Use Pixel Measurement to create accurate Bounding Boxes, Polygon/Polyline, and Cuboids measured by pixel size.

Cross Grid Measurement

Enabling Cross Grid Measurement attaches two perpendicular lines to the cursor, allowing you to place and align items with ease.

Pixel Smoothing

View an image item in a pixelated or smooth display when in full zoom.

Coordinates

When this setting is On, the cursor position (coordinates) on the loaded image are shown at the button left side of the screen. [0,0] is the top-left corner of the image.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Click the “i” icon to see the list of available keyboard shortcuts. Mastering shortcuts contribute to faster annotation work, saving time spent on moving the mouse or searching for features.
The list is separated into sections by their content, and it is continuously updated with the release of new features.

Copy Annotations from Previous Item

The Copy Annotations from Previous Item will copy the annotations from the previous item, provided they do fall out of the current item's bounds.

The copied annotations will have the same label, attributes and x, y coordinates.

This feature can be useful in cases where items are identical or nearly identical (e.g., in frames from a video), in which case annotations can be copied and marginally adjusted.

PDF Annotation Instructions

Managers have the option to attach PDF files containing annotation instructions to the recipe, and define specific page-range in workflow tasks. Annotators/workers can access these instructions by clicking the PDF icon shown on the bottom-left to have the instructions opened inside the studio or even open them in another browser-tab.

To add a PDF annotation instructions document, follow these steps:

1. Go to the recipe page.

2. Click on the Instructions tab, and click Upload under Annotation Instructions. Select the PDF file you wish to upload.
   
   

3. In your Dataset Browser, create a task. In the New Task dialog box, select the page range of the PDF annotation instructions document.
   
   

4. Now, you can can click the PDF icon in the Annotation Studio to view the PDF annotation instructions document.