CVAT Python SDK

Overview

CVAT SDK is a Python library. It provides you access to Python functions and objects that simplify server interaction and provide additional functionality like data validation and serialization.

SDK API includes several layers:

• Low-level API with REST API wrappers. Located at cvat_sdk.api_client. {{< ilink "/docs/api_sdk/sdk/lowlevel-api" "Read more" >}}
• High-level API. Located at cvat_sdk.core. {{< ilink "/docs/api_sdk/sdk/highlevel-api" "Read more" >}}
• PyTorch adapter. Located at cvat_sdk.pytorch. {{< ilink "/docs/api_sdk/sdk/pytorch-adapter" "Read more" >}}
• Auto-annotation API. Located at cvat_sdk.auto_annotation. {{< ilink "/docs/api_sdk/sdk/auto-annotation" "Read more" >}}
• Miscellaneous utilities, grouped by topic. Located at cvat_sdk.attributes and cvat_sdk.masks.

In general, the low-level API provides single-request operations, while the high-level one implements composite, multi-request operations, and provides local proxies for server objects. For most uses, the high-level API should be good enough, and it should be the right point to start your integration with CVAT.

The PyTorch adapter is a specialized layer that represents datasets stored in CVAT as PyTorch Dataset objects. This enables direct use of such datasets in PyTorch-based machine learning pipelines.

The auto-annotation API is a specialized layer that lets you automatically annotate CVAT datasets by running a custom function on the local machine. See also the auto-annotate command in the CLI.

Installation

To install an official release of CVAT SDK use this command:

pip install cvat-sdk

To use the cvat_sdk.masks module, request the masks extra:

pip install "cvat-sdk[masks]"

To use the PyTorch adapter or the built-in PyTorch-based auto-annotation functions, request the pytorch extra:

pip install "cvat-sdk[pytorch]"

We support Python versions 3.10 and higher.

Usage

To import package components, use the following code:

For the high-level API:

import cvat_sdk
# or
import cvat_sdk.core

For the low-level API:

import cvat_sdk.api_client

For the PyTorch adapter:

import cvat_sdk.pytorch