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CUB-200-2011: Fine-Grained Bird Species Dataset

CUB-200-2011 is a fine-grained bird image dataset of 11,788 photos across 200 species, each labeled with parts, attributes, and a bounding box (Wah et al., 2011). This Potato config reproduces the labeling task.

About this dataset

CUB-200-2011 (Caltech-UCSD Birds-200-2011) is a fine-grained image classification dataset built by Catherine Wah, Steve Branson, Peter Welinder, Pietro Perona, and Serge Belongie at Caltech and UCSD. It was released in 2011 as Caltech technical report CNS-TR-2011-001 and remains a standard benchmark for fine-grained visual categorization.

The dataset holds 11,788 bird photographs spread over 200 species, split into 5,994 training images and 5,794 test images. Each image carries detailed annotations collected and filtered through Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Every image is labeled with one species category, 15 part locations (such as bill, crown, and tail), 312 binary visual attributes (for example bill shape, wing pattern, and breast color), and one bounding box around the bird. The fine-grained nature of the task comes from telling apart visually similar species that differ only in small details.

The Potato config below reproduces this labeling task: a radio scheme for the bird family, a multiselect scheme for visible visual attributes drawn from the CUB attribute set, a radio scheme for visibility/occlusion, and a free-text field for notes.

Images
11,788
Species categories
200
Train / test split
5,994 / 5,794
Part locations per image
15
Binary attributes per image
312
Bounding boxes per image
1
Labels:outdoornatureurbanpeopleanimal+

Configuration Fileconfig.yaml

This Potato config reproduces the annotation task. Save it as config.yaml and run potato start config.yaml to try it.

yaml
# CUB-200-2011 Fine-Grained Bird Classification Configuration
# Based on Wah et al., 2011

annotation_task_name: "CUB-200 Bird Species Classification"
task_dir: "."

data_files:
  - "sample-data.json"

item_properties:
  id_key: "id"
  text_key: "image_url"
  context_key: "context"

user_config:
  allow_all_users: true

annotation_schemes:
  - annotation_type: "radio"
    name: "bird_family"
    description: "Select the bird family"
    labels:
      - name: "warbler"
        tooltip: "Small songbirds including warblers"
      - name: "sparrow"
        tooltip: "Sparrows and related species"
      - name: "vireo"
        tooltip: "Vireos"
      - name: "woodpecker"
        tooltip: "Woodpeckers and related"
      - name: "flycatcher"
        tooltip: "Flycatchers"
      - name: "wren"
        tooltip: "Wrens"
      - name: "gull"
        tooltip: "Gulls and terns"
      - name: "tern"
        tooltip: "Terns"
      - name: "blackbird"
        tooltip: "Blackbirds and orioles"
      - name: "other"
        tooltip: "Other bird families"

  - annotation_type: "multiselect"
    name: "visual_attributes"
    description: "Select visible attributes"
    labels:
      - name: "has_bill_shape_hooked"
        tooltip: "Bill is hooked"
      - name: "has_bill_shape_cone"
        tooltip: "Bill is cone-shaped"
      - name: "has_wing_pattern_striped"
        tooltip: "Wings have striped pattern"
      - name: "has_wing_pattern_solid"
        tooltip: "Wings are solid colored"
      - name: "has_breast_pattern_spotted"
        tooltip: "Breast has spots"
      - name: "has_breast_color_yellow"
        tooltip: "Breast is yellow"
      - name: "has_breast_color_white"
        tooltip: "Breast is white"
      - name: "has_crown_color_black"
        tooltip: "Crown is black"
      - name: "has_eye_color_red"
        tooltip: "Eyes are red"
      - name: "has_tail_shape_forked"
        tooltip: "Tail is forked"

  - annotation_type: "radio"
    name: "visibility"
    description: "How visible is the bird?"
    labels:
      - name: "fully_visible"
        tooltip: "Bird is completely visible"
      - name: "partially_occluded"
        tooltip: "Bird is partially hidden"
      - name: "mostly_occluded"
        tooltip: "Most of bird is hidden"

  - annotation_type: "text"
    name: "species_name"
    description: "Enter the specific species name if known"

interface_config:
  item_display_format: "<img src='{{text}}' style='max-width:100%; max-height:500px;'/><br/><small>{{context}}</small>"

output_annotation_format: "json"
output_annotation_dir: "annotations"

Sample Datasample-data.json

json
[
  {
    "id": "cub_001",
    "image_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/45/Eopsaltria_australis_-_Mogo_Campground.jpg/1200px-Eopsaltria_australis_-_Mogo_Campground.jpg",
    "context": "Identify the bird species and annotate visible attributes. Note any distinctive features."
  },
  {
    "id": "cub_002",
    "image_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6e/House_sparrow04.jpg/1200px-House_sparrow04.jpg",
    "context": "Classify this bird and mark all visible body part attributes."
  }
]

// ... and 1 more items

Get This Design

View on GitHub

Clone or download from the repository

Quick start:

git clone https://github.com/davidjurgens/potato-showcase.git
cd potato-showcase/image/classification/cub-200-birds
potato start config.yaml

Dataset & paper

Wah et al., 2011

Citation (BibTeX)

bibtex
@techreport{wah2011caltech,
    title = "The {Caltech-UCSD} Birds-200-2011 Dataset",
    author = "Wah, Catherine  and Branson, Steve  and Welinder, Peter  and Perona, Pietro  and Belongie, Serge",
    institution = "California Institute of Technology",
    number = "CNS-TR-2011-001",
    year = "2011",
    url = "https://authors.library.caltech.edu/records/cvm3y-5hh21"
}

Details

Annotation Types

multiselectradiotext

Domain

Computer VisionFine-Grained Classification

Use Cases

Bird Species ClassificationFine-Grained RecognitionAttribute Annotation

Tags

birdsfine-grainedspeciesattributescaltechwildlife

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