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vars-annotation

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Overview

DOI

VARS Annotation is MBARI's desktop application for creating and editing video annotations from ROV and AUV deployments. It is part of MBARI's VARS (Video Annotation and Reference System) software stack.

VARS Annotation is not a standalone application. It requires a set of backend microservices to function. See Getting Started below.

VARS Annotation

Video Playback

VARS can annotate video in several modes:

  • Real-time — annotate live video as it is being captured
  • Video tape — annotate from tape decks that support RS-422
  • Video files — annotate pre-recorded files via Sharktopoda, an external macOS video player that supports both playback and direct bounding-box drawing on video for spatial annotations

Getting Started

VARS requires a running backend stack of microservices. The easiest way to get everything up and running is vars-quickstart-public — a Docker-based orchestrator that brings up all required services together.

Prerequisites

Launch the backend services

git clone https://github.com/mbari-org/vars-quickstart-public.git
cd vars-quickstart-public
./varsq configure etc/env/localhost.env   # select your target environment
./varsq mkcert                            # generate SSL certificates
./varsq start                             # start all services
./varsq status                            # verify everything is running

The stack brings up the following services:

Service Port Purpose
annosaurus 8082 Annotation storage and retrieval
vampire-squid 8084 Video asset and sequence management
oni 8083 Knowledge base and taxonomy
panoptes 8085 Framegrab and image management
raziel 8400 API gateway and authentication
charybdis 8086 Cross-service query aggregation
beholder 8088 Image capture cache
skimmer 8089 Image processing pipeline
nginx 80 / 443 Reverse proxy with SSL termination

Install and connect VARS Annotation

Once the backend is running:

  1. Download VARS Annotation
  2. Launch it and open Settings (gear icon in the toolbar)
  3. Enter the URL of your Raziel configuration server and your credentials
  4. Click Test to verify the connection, then OK

See the setup guide for detailed configuration instructions, including video player setup.