Annotate

Use the tools on the Annotate group to add text or drawings to your images. Your annotations are in a graphics overlay that is displayed over the image without modifying the image data itself. The annotations do not become part of the image until you click the Burn-In button.

Note: When Annotation tool buttons are active, these tools receive all mouse movements and clicks first. This means that tools such as the ROI manager, Zoom, and Pan do not receive mouse movements or clicks. If you wish to manipulate the image using these tools, you must first de-select the Annotation tool by clicking it again. Clicking on a active tool button will release it, turning off the tools and allowing mouse messages to be passed on to other tools.

When you select one of the shape tools (line, rectangle, ellipse, polygon, text), your cursor will change to a crosshair whenever you are over the active image. When you click on the image, that sets the top-left corner of the new object, and an outline of the object with handles appears on the image in the workspace as you drag the mouse to size the object. Drag the handles until your drawing object reaches the size required.

It is possible to save your images and annotations without burning them. If you store your annotated images in either TIFF or Image-Pro Workspace format, the transparent overlay will be stored along with, but still apart from, the image data. No other file formats are capable of storing image overlays.

Select: The Select tool is used to select previously-drawn annotations on the image in order to move, edit, or delete them. To select more than one annotation, hold down the <CTRL> key while clicking them. You may also select multiple annotations by using the Selection cursor to click-and-drag a rectangle around them. To select all annotations in the active image, you can: click on the arrow to the right of the Select tool, then click on the Select All tool, or you can simply type <CTRL>+A.

Select All: Use this tool to select all the current annotations on the image.

Line: The Line tool is used to draw straight lines and arrows. To draw a line, select this tool, and click on the location in your image where you want to start the line. Drag the mouse cursor to the ending point. A line with handles will appear.

Rectangle and Round Rectangle: TheRectangle and Round Rectanglebuttons create similar objects. To draw a rectangle or rounded rectangle, place the cursor anywhere in the image, then drag the cursor to the appropriate size and release the mouse button. Once a rectangle has been created, its size can be modified by placing your cursor on one of the handles and dragging it to a new position. Hold down the <Shift> key when drawing a rectangle or round rectangle to draw a square.

Circle and Ellipse: The Circle and Ellipse button is used to draw circles and ellipse. To draw an ellipse, drag the cursor until an ellipse of the size and shape you need is produced. Once an ellipse has been created, its size can be modified by placing your cursor on one of the handles and dragging it to a new position. Hold down the <Shift> key when drawing an ellipse to create a circle.

Text: To place text on an image, select the Text Tool. If you have default text and Autosize bound set (see the Settings page description below), then you can just click your left mouse button inside the image to place the text object. If you do not have default text set, you will click your left mouse button, and drag the cursor to size the text object. You will then have the opportunity to edit the text in the annotation using the Text page of the properties dialog (see the Text page description below).

Text Callout: To place a callout on an image, select this tool. You can set the size and shape of the callout line in addition to adjusting the text as described above.

Polyline/Polygon: Use this tool to draw an open Polyline or closed Polygon. You can draw a polygon by dragging the mouse cursor along the path of the object, or by clicking on various points in the image. Double click the left mouse button to end the polyline.

Auto Tracing: The Auto Tracing options allow you to have Image-Pro use its sophisticated edge detection capabilities to auto-detect the boundaries of features in your image and trace them with an Annotation. When you select this tool, the Scripting Explorer dialog box is displayed in the Details panel:

Tracing Speed: This slider controls how quickly traces are snapped to feature edges. Valid values are from zero (tracing steps are made very slowly -- about one step every 1 or 2 seconds) to 100 (tracing steps are completed as fast as possible).
Edge Quality: Use this control to specify the edge quality that is required for the tracing tool to continue tracing. Allowed values are from 1 to 100. Values above 80 require very sharp edges to track, while values below 10 will follow mere wisps. Set the level higher to get tracing to stop sooner when it goes off track.
Noise Reduction: Use this control to specify the degree of smoothing to be applied to the image data before edge detection. The higher the number, the greater the noise reduction.
Momentum: Use this control to specify the degree to which tracing is given forward "momentum." The effect is to help graces from taking off on side-branches, but at the cost of continuing going straight longer when edges change direction. Best used when tracing objects with straight edges.
Smoothing: Use this control to specify the degree of smoothing to be applied to the final polyline or polygon. Values can be in the range from 0 to 15 and specify the size of an averaging kernel used for the trace smoothing.
Auto Start Tracing: When this option is selected, the second mouse click made when creating a polyline or polygon will automatically start tracing in the given direction. If this option is not selected, then tracing is initiated by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking in the desired starting direction. The lighting bolt cursor shows when tracing will start.
Auto Accept Final Trace: When this option is selected, when a trace is completed due to returning to the starting point or by intersecting itself, then the polyline or polygon being created is automatically finalized. If not selected, the user must press the Enter key or double-click the mouse to place the final point and complete the polygon.
Trim Leading Points: Frequently a trace will not return exactly to its starting point, but rather will intersect itself some distance from the starting point. When the Trim Leading Points option is selected, the line segment from the starting point to the intersection point is removed when the trace is finalized.
Remove Redundant Points: If this option is selected, horizontal, vertical, and diagonal runs will be replaced by their end vertices when the trace is finalized. If not selected, all result points are retained.
Monochrome Interpretation: When this option is selected, image color is ignored for edge detection; only average luminance is used. When this option is not selected, each color channel's luminance gradient is considered when doing edge detection.
Assume Clockwise: If this option is selected, Image-Pro assumes that polygons will be traced in a clockwise direction around the interior of the polygon. This information is used to determine which side of the trace should be considered the interior. Use this option for color images where the traced feature is of one color buried in a multicolor background. When the option is clear, no assumption is made about the interior color. This works well where the background color is uniform.
Use Rangemin/RangeMax: When this option is selected, the range for full-scale luminance swings is assumed to be the full RangeMin/RangeMax of the image type. When this option is not selected, the range for full-scale luminance swings is assumed to be the displayed range of image luminance.
Bound Trace by ROI: If set, the traced polygon must start within the bounds of the ROI and it is not allowed to venture outside the bounds of the ROI. If cleared, the ROI is ignored when tracing.
Disable Tracing: Select this option to disable the tracing feature.
Auto Scale: If set, when tracing on a zoomed out image (zoom less than 50%), image scaling will automatically be adjusted to a value that will trace with a resolution approximating what is seen in the view.
Scale: An integer value of 0 to 9 giving the degree of subsampling (as a power of 2) to be applied to the image before tracing.

Point: Use the point tool to annotate a single point in the image.

Cut: The Cut button will copy the selected object(s) to the clipboard and remove them from the image. You can then use the Paste button to paste the objects onto the original or another image.

Copy: The Copy button will copy the selected object(s) to the clipboard, but will not remove them from the image. You can then use the Paste button to paste the objects onto the original or another image.

Paste: The Paste button will paste any annotation objects on the clipboard to the active image.

Paste Bitmap: If the Windows clipboard holds an image ROI (placed there by clicking the Edit menu Cut Image or Copy Image) or a bitmap (placed there by cut/copy from any application), then the bitmap may be placed on the image as an annotation object. Annotation bitmaps may be moved, resized and rotated. They can also have a specified key color designated as transparent; see Graphic Object Properties

Delete: The Delete button will permanently delete the selected annotation object(s) from the image.

Delete All: The Delete All button will permanently remove all annotation objects from the active image.

Group: If more than one object is selected, they may be grouped. Grouped objects are selected as one, and they can be cut/copied, pasted, moved, resized and/or rotated as one object. Grouped objects are displayed together in the layer of the group, no matter what their own layer is. Similarly, the group’s frame range properties control the frames on which the entire group is displayed. Group members’ display order within the group is their relative display order at the time they were grouped.

Ungroup: If a single group is selected, then its members may be ungrouped. Ungrouping returns the individual group members to independent selection, display, sizing and so on. Changes in position, size and rotation made while a group member are retained by the ungrouped objects. However, changes in the display order of the group (e.g., Move Forward), the group’s display frame range or the layer of the group do not affect individual group members, so when they are ungrouped they return to their pre-grouping display order, frame range and layer.

Move Forward: Click on this option to move the display of the selected object(s) forward in the stack of objects in the same layer. This command moves the selected object(s) on top of the next one(s) in the layer.

Move Backward: Click on this option to move the display of the selected object(s) back in the stack of objects in the same layer. This command moves the selected object(s) on under the previous one(s) in the layer.

Display Options: Click this button to display the Display Options dialogs for the currently selected annotation. Image-Pro displays the appropriate panels for the type of annotation you have selected. Most Graphical Object Properties dialogs have two tabs -- one to configure the color, fill, and other display properties of the selected object, and one to configure the font, size, color, and other display properties of the label to be applied to the selected object. Click here for a description of the various controls on the Display Options dialogs.

Burn-In: When annotations are initially placed on an image, they exist as graphical overlays and are not part of the image. If you want them to become part of the image, however, you can ‘burn’ them into the image using the Burn-In tool. The Burn-In tool permanently embeds your annotations into the image.

Note: Buttons are dimmed if the operation associated with that button make no sense. For example, if there are no selected objects, the Cut, Copy, Delete and Paste buttons are dimmed. If there is no information in the clipboard to paste, the Paste button is dimmed.