Kitware and NOAA Host VIAME Software Integration and Training Workshop

Kitware worked with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Automated Image Analysis Strategic Initiative (AIASI) to host a software integration and training workshop for Video and Image Analytics for the Marine Environment (VIAME). The workshop took place at Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, Washington, from September 20 to 23, 2016.

More than 10 participants attended the workshop, representing SRI International, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, the University of Washington, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Northeast Fisheries Science Center and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Kitware provided an initial, complete application programming interface (API)/software development kit (SDK) framework for selected functions to the participants. Before the workshop, participants downloaded and worked to install the software, familiarized themselves with the general functionality and attempted to integrate their respective modules using the API. During the workshop, developers from Kitware and participants worked side-by-side to complete the software integration and to identify gaps, bugs and development needs. Kitware fixed all of the serious bugs were on the spot and prioritized desired features for future development.

All in all, participants made significant progress in adapting existing analytics to VIAME. For example, they integrated and adapted analytics written in C++, Matlab and Python on Ubuntu, Windows and Mac OS X. This progress validated Kitware’s inclusive multi-language and multi-platform approach.

We are planning on future workshops to continue integrating the analytics and evolving the VIAME framework to support end-to-end analytical applications.

The VIAME framework is built on top of open-source tools from Kitware’s Kitware Image and Video Exploitation and Retrieval (KWIVER) toolkit.

We would like to thank NOAA and Ben Richards for making this workshop possible.