Global Label Set Mapping

Label Sets

What Label Set should I use?

Label sets are creatable and customisable for each project. Your choice of label set is dependent on the detail captured in your photos, the geographic location and composition of your reef, confidence of your team in identifying different benthic components as well as the science questions you aim to answer about the reef.

Label sets can be as simple or complex as you need. For example, ReefCheck use 10 simple substrate categories to describe for community monitoring, while at Palau International Coral Reef Center we use over 120 labels, including many coral species names. There is a trade off with the size and complexity of your label set: to some extent the machine may learn faster on simpler label sets and this may reduce the number of manual annotations you need to make before the machine is performing well. Bear in mind with inclusions of species that the machine will only be able to identify species if you can confidently identify the species from the photo.

You may already have a label set that your project or organisation uses, for consistency. If you don't, consider following established labels such as the Collaborative and Automated Tools for Analysis of Marine Imagery codes (CATAMI classification), specifically designed to help standardise vocabulary across different studies. ReefCloud offers several template label sets for different users.

Considerations for label set design

Considerations when designing your own label set should include:

• What biological and physical variables ("things" on the reef) do you need to monitor?

• In what detail (taxonomic resolution for biological parameters) do you need to monitor these variables?

• At what scale do you want to collect information?

• How much capacity do I/my team have for classifying images (including time, and taxonomic expertise)