Polygon Annotation

What is polygon annotation?

Polygon annotation is a precise way to annotate objects by selecting a series of x, y coordinates along its edges. Polygon annotation can hence have pixel perfect precision whilst being highly flexible and adaptable to a variety of shapes.

Before image alt After image alt
Before image alt After image alt

Where can it be used?

Polygon annotation is very often used in object detection and recognition models due to its flexibility and pixel-perfect labeling capability. 

  • Medical: outlining the anatomy of internal organs on CT scans
  • Geospatial: getting precise building footprints
  • Automotive: detecting damages on cars and calculating the repair costs
  • Industrial: making precise liquid estimations with centrifuge
  • Agriculture: monitoring the growth of plants
  • Retail: detecting products in a shopper’s basket
Before image alt After image alt

The Pros

  • Polygons are ideal for labelling irregular shapes.
  • Pixel-perfect annotation means that no irrelevant pixels go inside of the annotated area.

The Cons

  • Polygons may take considerably longer than bounding boxes to annotate, depending on the complexity of the object.
  • Not all annotation tools include the ability to make holes inside of polygons, or to signal that two polygons belong to the same object in the case of truncation.
Before image alt After image alt
Before image alt After image alt

Our Tips

  • Some tools require users to click along the border of the object in order to create nodes connected by straight edges, while others allow for freehand tracing which can be more precise. The best tools allow users to easily toggle between the two modalities. 
  • Consider whether overlapping polygons must be distinguishable. If so, using layers would be recommended.
  • Round shapes often require more nodes as it’s harder to achieve the smooth look and shape with fewer nodes. On the contrary, it’s best to put less nodes where the object is straightly shaped, as adding more will decrease the smoothness of the annotation.
Before image alt After image alt

Tools and Platforms for Polygon Annotation

Alegion logo
Diffgram logo
Hasty.ai logo
KILI Technology logo
Manthano logo
Segments.ai logo
SuperAnnotate logo
V7 labs logo
What data would you like to have annotated?

Use cases

Illustration shows Geospatial annotation
Geospatial
Illustration shows Medical annotation
Medical
Illustration shows Automotive annotation
Automotive
Illustration shows Industry annotation
Industrial
Illustration shows AgriTech annotation
Agricultural
Illustration shows Retail annotation
Retail

Interested in having your dataset annotated with polygons?
Get in touch with our team at Humans in the Loop and a project manager will advise you on the best strategy!