Two updates' worth in one release (1.1 never shipped; I just kept going): Smart Select pixel masks, on-canvas proposal review, a stronger built-in detector, batch detection, video-to-frames import, large dataset performance improvements, and near-duplicate cleanup.
Headline features
- Smart Select masks. Smart Select now creates pixel-accurate masks, not just outlines. Refine a mask by adding or removing regions with a click, or re-run segmentation from a box when you want a different result. (Mask creation is Pro; viewing, converting, importing, and exporting masks is free.)
- Review proposals on the canvas. Accept or reject model proposals without leaving the image: click to accept one, drag a marquee to select several, or accept them all at once. An inline confidence slider shows proposals appear and drop live, so you can find the right cutoff by eye.
- A stronger built-in detector. Detect Multiple now runs RF-DETR Nano instead of YOLOv3: better proposals across the same 80 common classes, still fully on-device.
- Batch detection. Select any number of images in the list or grid and run any Detect command over all of them, with proposals accepted automatically.
- Detect Subjects. Automatically outline the foreground instances of any class as polygons, so you start from a real segmentation instead of a blank canvas.
- Import video as frames. Point yaAnnotator at a video and pull frames into a folder you choose, ready to label. (Pro)
- Performance improvements. Large dataset performance improvements across the board, especially when you import and use masks.
- Near-duplicate cleanup. Find groups of near-identical images and remove the extras in one action, keeping one per group.
Other improvements
- Annotation layers. Show or hide boxes, polygons, and masks independently, and convert between them.
- Masks import and export. Round-trip masks through COCO RLE and PNG mask sidecars, with no data loss. Importing segmentations as pixel masks is a choice on the import sheet; a plain polygon still imports as a polygon.
- First-run welcome window. Jump straight to recent projects, a new or existing project, or Help when you launch.
- Built-in export presets. Start from ready-made export recipes instead of a blank configuration.
- Customize the editor toolbar. Rearrange it the Mac way, with every toolbar action mirrored in the menus.
- Paste Annotations from Previous Image (⌥⌘V). Copy the previous image's annotations onto the current one in a single shortcut, then nudge them into place with the arrow keys, with snapping while you drag.
- Mark images that have no objects. Flag background images explicitly; they're counted correctly in filters, badges, and exports.
- Fill-opacity control and a drag-zoom slider in the toolbar, for clearer overlays and quicker zooming.
- Open the Label Manager from anywhere, not only from the image list.
- Optional automatic report recompute. Let the Analyze Annotations report refresh itself as you work, or keep it manual.
- Safer imports and exports. A warning when a folder is syncing, a free-space check before export, and an advisory on import help you avoid surprises with your files.
- Faster with big projects. Mask imports rasterize in parallel, removing many images at once is dramatically faster, and dense projects scroll more smoothly.
- Quicker to read at a glance. Thumbnails break down their annotation counts by kind, and imports name each phase so you know what's happening.
- More keyboard, better VoiceOver. Page Up / Page Down step through images everywhere, ⌃⌘L hides labels on the canvas, a loaded custom detector runs with ⇧⌘D, and the grid, list rows, and canvas are more accessible.
- Mask polish. Clearer selection, press Return to finish a mask, and layer toggles in the inspector.
- Sturdier with imperfect files. Corrupt or unreadable images are caught and reported clearly wherever they turn up.
- Smart Select mask creation and refinement, and video import, are part of Pro, with a gentle prompt when you reach for them.
Bug fixes, etc.
- Exports and augmentation passes now add to a folder instead of overwriting what's already there.
- You can cancel a running video extraction.
- Unable to cancel a run on sentence that I was writing while trying to create a joke to insert into these release notes.
- Large or malformed masks no longer cause trouble on import.
- Fixed a COCO import regression: segmentations default to polygons again, with masks as the opt-in.
- Fixed label assignment when several annotations were selected at once.
- Fixed the Simplify action on very large polygons.
- Fixed a case where an export or backup could be written to the wrong location.
- Fixed occasional stale values in the inspector after edits.
- Got you tickets to Taylor's wedding. They are at will-call. I hope you see this message in time.