cvat/site/content/en/docs/manual/advanced/contextual-images.md

title	linkTitle	weight	description
Contextual images	Contextual images	26	Contextual images of the task

Contextual images are additional images that provide context or additional information related to the primary image.

Use them to add extra contextual about the object to improve the accuracy of annotation.

Contextual images are available for 2D and 3D tasks.

See:

• Folder structure
• Data format
• Contextual images

Folder structure

To add contextual images to the task, you need to organize the images folder.

Before uploading the archive to CVAT, do the following:

1. In the folder with the images for annotation, create a folder: related_images.
2. Add to the related_images a subfolder with the same name as the primary image to which it should be linked.
3. Place the contextual image(s) within the subfolder created in step 2.
4. Add folder to the archive.
5. {{< ilink "/docs/manual/basics/create-annotation-task#create-a-task" "Create task" >}}.

Data format

Example file structure for 2D and 3D tasks:

{{< tabpane >}} {{< tab header="2D task" >}} root_directory image_1_to_be_annotated.jpg image_2_to_be_annotated.jpg related_images/ image_1_to_be_annotated_jpg/ context_image_for_image_1.jpg image_2_to_be_annotated_jpg/ context_image_for_image_2.jpg subdirectory_example/ image_3_to_be_annotated.jpg related_images/ image_3_to_be_annotated_jpg/ context_image_for_image_3.jpg {{< /tab >}} {{< tab header="3D option 1" >}} root_directory pointcloud/ image_1_to_be_annotated.pcd image_2_to_be_annotated.pcd related_images/ image_1_to_be_annotated_pcd/ context_image_for_image_1.jpg image_2_to_be_annotated_pcd/ context_image_for_image_2.jpg {{< /tab >}} {{< tab header="3D option 2" >}} /any_directory pointcloud.pcd pointcloud.jpg /any_other_directory /any_subdirectory pointcloud.pcd pointcloud.png {{< /tab >}} {{< tab header="3D task KITTI format" >}} /image_00 /data /0000000000.png /0000000001.png /0000000002.png /0000000003.png /image_01 /data /0000000000.png /0000000001.png /0000000002.png /0000000003.png /image_02 /data /0000000000.png /0000000001.png /0000000002.png /0000000003.png /image_N /data /0000000000.png /0000000001.png /0000000002.png /0000000003.png /velodyne_points /data /0000000000.bin /0000000001.bin /0000000002.bin /0000000003.bin {{< /tab >}} {{< /tabpane >}}

• For KITTI: image_00, image_01, image_02, image_N, (where N is any number <= 12) are context images.
• For 3D option 3: a regular image file placed near a .pcd file with the same name is considered to be a context image.

For more general information about 3D data formats, see {{< ilink "/docs/manual/basics/create-annotation-task#data-formats-for-a-3d-task" "3D data formats" >}}.

Contextual images

The maximum amount of contextual images is twelve.

By default they will be positioned on the right side of the main image.

{{% alert title="Note" color="primary" %}} By default, only three contextual images will be visible. {{% /alert %}}

When you add contextual images to the set, small toolbar will appear on the top of the screen, with the following elements:

Element	Description
	Fit views. Click to restore the layout to its original appearance. If you've expanded any images in the layout, they will returned to their original size. This won't affect the number of context images on the screen.
	Add new image. Click to add context image to the layout.
	Reload layout. Click to reload layout to the default view. Note, that this action can change the number of context images resetting them back to three.

Each context image has the following elements:

Element	Description
1	Full screen. Click to expand the contextual image in to the full screen mode. Click again to revert contextual image to windowed mode.
2	Move contextual image. Hold and move contextual image to the other place on the screen.
3	Name. Unique contextual image name
4	Select contextual image. Click to open a horizontal listview of all available contextual images. Click on one to select.
5	Close. Click to remove image from contextual images menu.
6	Extend Hold and pull to extend the image.