Annotations & comments
Everything you draw or write on a file sits in a layer above it. The file on disk never changes, the layers travel with a share link, and every one of them is listed in the Layers window where it can be hidden or deleted.
The tools
Section titled “The tools”They live in the tool cluster at the bottom of the screen when an image, video, PDF or DICOM window is in front. Each tooltip shows its key.
| Tool | Key | |
|---|---|---|
| Select | v | Click an annotation to move, resize or restyle it |
| Pan | h | Drag the view |
| Point | . | Mark a single spot |
| Rectangle | r | |
| Circle | c | |
| Line | l | |
| Arrow | ||
| Text | t | A label at a point on the image |
| Pen | p | Freehand |
| Comment | Shift+C | A pinned discussion, see below |
Point, Rectangle, Circle, Line and Arrow share one button in the cluster, which shows the shape you used last; its menu has the others. A shape can be moved and resized with Select. The Inspector switches to a Shape tab while one is selected, with Appearance (fill, text and stroke colour, opacity), Stroke & shape (width, corner radius), Text, Geometry, and Layer (Bring to front, Send to back, and whether it renders above or below the image).
A file you put in a shared project, or in a team drive, is one file for everyone who can reach it. Everyone sees its annotations; editors and team members can also draw on it and review what is waiting. See Sharing.
Needs review
Section titled “Needs review”Annotations drawn by Ray, a script or a model are proposals: they wait for you to accept them. They show dashed on the image and gather under Needs review in Layers, above your own annotations.
While anything is waiting on an image, a review bar sits over it and steps through the proposals one at a time, showing who drew each one:
| Button | Key | |
|---|---|---|
| Accept | a | Keep the shape |
| Reject | x | Turn it down; Say why then adds a note for the author |
| Next | n | Move to the next one without deciding |
Accept all takes everything at once. The bar goes away when nothing is left.
In the Data app, a file with proposals waiting shows an N to review badge. A folder that holds such files gets a Needs review filter and a Review N button, which opens the waiting images one after another.
To have your own shapes checked by someone else, turn on Draw as proposed in the tool cluster (Shift+D). Everything you draw after that waits for review until you turn it off.
Pose labels
Section titled “Pose labels”To train a pose model you first label bodyparts on a set of video frames. Right-click a folder of videos (MP4, MOV, AVI or MKV) in the Data app and choose Create pose training set….
- Setup: tick the videos to include, choose the bodyparts to label, and set Frames per video. Relay can suggest evenly spaced frames, or you can pick them all yourself. Videos on Local Disk are uploaded to Relay Drive first, and only when you choose to.
- Review frames: remove any suggested frame, or scrub to add another.
- Label: a Pose labeling window opens. For each frame, select a bodypart and click the frame to place it, then drag to adjust. Mark a bodypart Occluded (o) or Outside frame (x) when you cannot see it. ← and → change frame, and n jumps to the next unfinished one.
When every frame is done, Complete task freezes the labels, ready for training. Nothing is trained until you start it.
Regions
Section titled “Regions”A region is a selection rather than a drawing. Choose Region Rectangle (q), Region Circle (w), Region Lasso (e) or Region Polygon (y), draw it, and then:
- run a Process tool and it applies only inside the region;
- Capture region… sends just that part of the image to Studio;
- on a single-cell viewer, lasso cells and save them as a Set.
Measurements
Section titled “Measurements”DICOM and molecule viewers have a Measure tab for distances and angles, and atlases have a Distance tool. Pixel sizes come from the file’s own metadata, so measurements are in real units when the file records them.
Comments
Section titled “Comments”A comment is a discussion pinned to a spot. Choose Comment (or Shift+C), click the place, and write. ⌘Enter posts it.
- Anyone who can see the file can reply; threads stay attached to the spot.
- The author can Edit, Delete or Resolve a thread from its menu. Resolved threads dim rather than disappear.
- Type @ to name a teammate. Matching members of your team come up as you type, by name or email; the one you pick appears in the comment as a chip in their own colour, the same colour their pins wear. It works in replies and edits too. Nobody is emailed or otherwise notified yet.
- When you belong to a team, a comment is either Private or visible to the team; the toggle is in the composer. Naming someone makes the comment visible to the team, since a private one would not reach them — unless you set the toggle yourself, in which case your choice stands.
- Clicking a comment in Layers restores the exact view it was written on — camera, slice, time point and plane — and opens the thread.
Comments are the part of a share link that stays two-way: a recipient with the Commenter role can reply on the exact view you sent them. See Sharing.
Layers
Section titled “Layers”The Layers button in the tool cluster lists, top to bottom: the scenes in a multi-scene file, processing layers (each Process tool you ran), Needs review while anything is waiting, then Annotations and Comments. Toggle any of them, delete them, or duplicate a processing layer to try a different setting alongside.