BRIMA: low-overhead BRowser-only IMage Annotation tool (Preprint)

TL;DR

BRIMA is a browser extension that simplifies image annotation by enabling easy, fast, and setup-free annotations directly within the browser, supporting cross-platform use for AI research.

Contribution

The paper introduces BRIMA, a novel open-source browser extension that reduces technical overhead for image annotation in AI research.

Findings

Enables instant image annotation without installation

Supports cross-browser and cross-platform functionality

Reduces technical complexity and setup time

Abstract

Image annotation and large annotated datasets are crucial parts within the Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence fields.At the same time, it is well-known and acknowledged by the research community that the image annotation process is challenging, time-consuming and hard to scale. Therefore, the researchers and practitioners are always seeking ways to perform the annotations easier, faster, and at higher quality. Even though several widely used tools exist and the tools' landscape evolved considerably, most of the tools still require intricate technical setups and high levels of technical savviness from its operators and crowdsource contributors. In order to address such challenges, we develop and present BRIMA -- a flexible and open-source browser extension that allows BRowser-only IMage Annotation at considerably lower overheads. Once added to the browser, it instantly allows the user to annotate images easily and efficiently directly from the browser without any installation or setup on the client-side. It also features cross-browser and cross-platform functionality thus presenting itself as a neat tool for researchers within the Computer Vision, Artificial Intelligence, and privacy-related fields.