Platform For AI:iTAG FAQ

Q: Is PAI-iTAG free? How is it billed?

• iTAG platform: The iTAG platform is free to use if you perform manual annotation with your own team.

• Object Storage Service (OSS): iTAG requires Alibaba Cloud Object Storage Service (OSS) to run. Therefore, fees for OSS storage and data read and write traffic are charged separately. For more information, see Billing overview.

• Intelligent annotation service: The intelligent annotation service, which is provided for templates such as image-to-text and image and text descriptions, is currently free. You will be notified if this service becomes a paid feature in the future.

• Manual annotation outsourcing service: If you want to delegate data annotation to the Alibaba Cloud professional team, submit a ticket to the PAI team to use this paid service.

Q: The console shows that I do not have iTAG permissions. How do I grant them?

You can add a role in the workspace and then grant permissions in People Management in iTAG. For more information, see Assign roles to members.

Q: How do I add a team member, such as a RAM user, as an annotator?

Log on to the PAI console with your root account and add the RAM user as a member in Workspace Management. Then, go to People Management in iTAG and select Add Workspace Internal Account. You can then find and add the RAM user as an annotator or administrator. For more information, see Assign roles to members.

Q: Why can't I find my RAM user when I try to add a workspace internal account?

First, add the RAM user as a member of the current PAI workspace. After the user is added, you can find them in the list. For more information, see the Configure member roles section of Manage a workspace.

Q: How do I add team members, users from other companies, or individuals as annotators?

Follow the steps in the Add a role for another Alibaba Cloud account section of Add a role to add team members, users from other companies, or individuals as annotators.

Q: Can annotators download raw data?

The iTAG platform does not directly provide a raw data download feature for annotators to ensure data security. Data access permissions are determined by the access control policy of the storage location, such as OSS. You can configure OSS access policies to manage data access.

Q: When I create an annotation task, the dataset format fails to parse. What should I do?

When you create an annotation task on the iTAG page, the following error might be reported when you select a registered dataset: Failed to parse the dataset format. Select a dataset with the correct format. To resolve this issue:

• iTAG supports only datasets in the iTAG data annotation format. Create a dataset using the method for creating iTAG datasets. For more information, see Create a dataset for data annotation.

• Verify that the format of the created dataset is correct. For more information, see Annotation file formats.

Q: When creating an iTAG dataset, why is the OSS Bucket unavailable, or why is the file path drop-down list empty?

Check the following:

1. Region consistency: Make sure that your PAI-iTAG workspace is in the same region as your OSS Bucket. You can switch regions in the upper-left corner of the PAI console.

   Check the current region of PAI-iTAG:

   

   Check the region of the OSS Bucket:

   

2. Path and file requirements: iTAG does not support reading data directly from the root directory of an OSS Bucket. Store data files in a subdirectory of the bucket and enter the subdirectory name in the OSS File Path field. In addition, dataset import requires a manifest file, such as a .csv or .manifest file, not a direct path to a folder of raw images or videos.

Q: Does iTAG support using local data directly for annotation, for example, by mounting a local NAS?

No, it does not. iTAG requires input data to be stored in Alibaba Cloud OSS. First, upload your local data, including data from a NAS, to OSS. Then, create a dataset in iTAG that points to this OSS data to start an annotation task.