Release Notes

This document provides the release notes for MVTec Deep Learning Tool 0.3.1, as released on 2020-12-11.

The license of version 0.3.1 is valid until 2021-06-30.

Version 0.3.1

New Features

• The license of Deep Learing Tool 0.3 expires on Dec 31, 2020. With version 0.3.1, the license is extended until June 30, 2021.
  Apart from that, no changes have been introduced in this version.
• Deep Learning Tool is now installed using the MVTec Software Manager (SOM). While MVP, the installer used before, cannot install this version of DLT, you need to use MVP to remove any previous versions.

Version 0.3

New Features

• With the new Review tab, it is now possible to review labeled images and objects. Particularly, the Review tab offers the following functionality:
  • It is possible to change the label class of selected labels.
  • It is possible to delete selected label regions. In case of classification it is possible to delete images on the Review tab.
  • Depending on the selection of items in the gallery view of the Review Tab, the following information is shown in the info panel:
    Single selection
    • Name of the image containing the region
    • Region size
    • Label class
    Multi selection
    • Name of the image containing the regions (if the image is the same for all selected regions)
    • Label class (if the class is the same for all selected regions)
  • The documentation now covers the Review tab.
• Deep Learning Tool now also supports classification projects. In addition to assigning such labels to images, this feature includes the following functionality:
  • It is now possible to export labeled images to an HDICT file.
  • An existing HDICT file for classification can be imported. Label classes are created if missing, and the labels are imported. If an image is loaded but assigned to another class already, then the following logic is applied:
    • If the imported image has a label, it overrules any label loaded already.
    • If the imported image has no label, any possibly existing label is kept.
    If the HDICT file is of wrong type, then the import is cancelled and an error message is shown.
  • The documentation now covers the Classification scenario.
• The Deep Learning Tool can be started using defined INI files via command line options:
  reset_preferences: Reset persistent settings to default values.
  add_preferences: Start Deep Learning Tool with additional preferences from a file.
  load_preferences: Reset all persistent settings and start Deep Learning Tool with the preferences from a file.
  use_preferences: Start Deep Learning Tool with the preferences from the file and store all modified preferences in the file.
• On the Projects tab, a summary of the selected project is displayed, which also contains the last modification time of the project and the program version that was used to write the project. This information now always reflects the state of the project file in the file system instead of the state of the current project in memory. Hence, it is not changed for the currently open project until the project is saved.
  In addition, the modification time of a project was not correctly updated when its name or description was changed on the project summary panel without explicitly opening the project before. This problem has been fixed.
• The color picker area on the dialog for creating or editing a label class has been improved. Now it is easier to assign class colors that contrast well with the image contents.
• On the Label tab, it is now possible to copy, cut and paste regions using Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X and Ctrl+V.
• A progress bar now shows the percentage of labeled images.
• If a user tries to save a project file that was modified and saved by another user concurrently, now a warning is displayed saying that continuing to save the project would overwrite the changes made by a different user.
• Class names can now contain any character.
• The Label tab has been extended to select multiple labels at once. While holding the Shift key, draw a rectangle to select all labels within this area.
• A selected label can be deselected by pressing the Esc key.
• If an HDict is imported, an already existing label in an image is not inserted again if position and class are equal.
• If a task takes a long time (for example: loading a project that contains many images), the status bar now indicates that the task is running.
• If an imported HALCON dictionary contains additional data fields for the project or for images, these data fields will now be stored in the project file of the Deep Learning Tool and can be re-exported later. However, this extra data is neither interpreted nor modified. Therefore, the consistency of data that belongs to label classes or label regions is not guaranteed, especially if label classes or label regions are removed or newly created.
• The documentation now contains information about the selection of multiple labels.
• A percentage bar and a dialog now show statistical information about the share of images with labels and the amount of labels for each class.
• The behavior for selecting multiple images in the Gallery tab has been changed. Now, when clicking an image without modifier keys (Shift or Ctrl), the current selection is abandoned and only the image that was clicked is selected. To select multiple images, the Shift or the Ctrl key has to be hold while clicking images. Clicking the check mark icon on the top left of each image still adds the image to the selection.
• Deleting images has been simplified in accordance with the revised selection functionality. When images are about to be deleted, a confirmation dialog is shown.
• The Submit Feedback functionality now opens a form on the MVTec website instead of the email program.
• If one of the pop-up dialogs is opened for editing the project name, the project description, or the label class, the other parts of the application are now disabled as long as the dialog is open.

Resolved Issues and Improvements

• On the Project tab, the summary of projects with many classes had been cropped such that program and file version of the project could not be read. This problem has been fixed.
• When closing and reopening Deep Learning Tool on a screen with high-DPI scaling that was not the primary screen, DLT reopened with half the size. This problem has been fixed.
• On the Gallery tab, there should be a "Browse" button for images that cannot be found in the file system under the given path. Depending on the selected language and the thumbnail size, these buttons could have disappeared. For some languages, the buttons were not visible even with the default thumbnail size. This problem has been fixed.
• If the GUI language was changed, the documentation was still opened in the default (English) language. Now the documentation is opened in the chosen language if it is available.
• Sometimes the label class list could not be scrolled. This issue has been fixed.
• In some dialogs it could have happened that the characters of the text were randomly displaced with a kind of jitter. This problem has been fixed.
• It was not possible to open RGB color images with a width greater than 8192 pixels. This problem has been fixed. Now the maximum image size is 32768 x 32768 pixels.
• On the Image tab, the class name next to labels did not vanish on hover out. This problem has been fixed.
• The deletion of a great number of images from the project took a very long time. This problem has been fixed.
• After deleting images with label regions from the project, old labels of the removed images could re-appear when new images were added to the project. This problem has been fixed.
• The HDict exported by DLT contained arbitrary IDs for label classes. This has been fixed. Now, the IDs of the label classes are enumerated from zero.
• When a corrupted working copy was saved (for example, due to a crash while writing data), DLT has crashed on next startup. This has been fixed. Now, leftovers will be restored in the state before the last action.
• It was not possible to open project files in the Deep Learning Tool if the read-only flag of the file was set or if the user had no write permission to the file. This problem has been fixed. Now it is possible to open projects without write permission as long as the user has read permission. When modifying such projects, they must be saved under a different name.
• If a project contains images that cannot be found in the file system, the user can search for the images and correct their paths. This did not work if the user moved the images to the folders used in the project, that is if the paths should work now without being changed. In this case, an error message was displayed. This problem has been fixed. Now, the images are also reloaded if the paths were not changed.
• When an old project file that was written with a previous version of the Deep Learning Tool was opened, the file version displayed on the Project tab was wrong. This problem has been fixed.
• When importing an image folder, all images in the currently displayed folder were imported instead of the currently selected folder. This has been fixed.
• After opening the Help menu, the shortcut F1 for displaying the help page in the browser worked only every second time. The same problem occurred with the shortcut F11 for switching into the full screen mode after the menu was opened. These problems have been fixed.

Known Issues

• In very rare cases, Deep Learning Tool crashes during startup. This is probably caused by an incompatible hardware setup. If you encounter such issues, please contact MVTec.

Version 0.2

New Features

• The Deep Learning Tool now allows to create projects for object detection with arbitrarily oriented rectangles as label regions. After creating such a project it is possible to draw and edit oriented rectangles. Furthermore, it is now possible to import label data from HALCON dictionaries as well as to export the label data into a HALCON dictionary.
• The Deep Learning Tool is now able to retrieve an RSS news feed published by MVTec. The latest news will be displayed automatically at the startup of the application. To request the news manually, click "News" in the help menu.
• The Deep Learning Tool now supports multiple languages (depending on what is installed in a certain program folder). The language can be configured via user preferences. Currently, the Deep Learning Tool supports English, German, simplified Chinese and Japanese. It is possible to use a customized translation.
• The Gallery tab has been extended by a multi selection functionality. Now, it is possible to select multiple images and delete them in one step.
• The Deep Learning Tool now supports the loading of images in more file formats and pixel types. This includes mainly the image file formats TIFF, JPEG-2000, JPEG-XR, and HOBJ. The pixel type of the loaded images is no longer restricted to byte images.
• The Deep Learning Tool has been extended with a feedback functionality. To send feedback to MVTec via email, open the help menu and choose "Feedback".
• Deleting a label class may destroy a lot of work. Therefore, the user has to confirm this action now via a warning dialog. In addition, by deleting a label class all labels of that class are also deleted.
• The application now has an entry "MVTec Deep Learning Tool" in the Windows Start Menu.

Resolved Issues and Improvements

• When creating a new project, it is possible to enter the path to the project file. When instead of the project file an exiting folder was entered, a message box asked the user if the file should be replaced, which is unexpectedly. Further, when trying to save the project an error message was printed that the file could not be saved. This problem has been fixed. Now, when an existing folder is entered as project path, the project's name is used as file name, which is created in the given folder. In addition, the extension .dltp is automatically added, if it was not entered in the path.
• On the Label tab selecting all labels at once with the shortcut Ctrl+A did not work when the image had the keyboard focus. It worked only when the table "Labels" had the keyboard focus. This problem has been fixed. Now, on the whole Label tab Ctrl+A can be used for selecting all labels.
• The shortcut Ctrl+W did not work for closing the current project. This problem has been fixed.
• When several HALCON dictionaries with different labels for the same images were imported one after the other, only the labels of the last imported dictionary were displayed, all other labels seemed to be lost. This problem has been fixed. Now, all imported labels are kept in the project and are displayed correctly.
• The "Save Project" dialog appeared on loading projects that have already been opened. Now, the view is switched to the Gallery tab instead.
• The dialog for adding/editing label classes did not contain any error indication. This problem has been fixed.
• Zooming the thumbnails in the Gallery tab using Ctrl+mouse wheel did not work if the mouse cursor was positioned over a quick info (file path).
• When creating a new class, the class was not selected. Now, the focus is on the newly created class.
• The scrolling speed of the image list in the Gallery tab has been improved.
• For creating a new label class the text field was replaced by a simple + button. Clicking this button opens a popup dialog that allows to enter the label class name and to select a color for the class.
• After clicking "Save Project As..." the current UI state was lost. Now, the application stays in the same state (on the same image in Label tab / on the same tab) as before.