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ViPER: Quick Start Guide

Welcome to ViPER

ViPER, the Video Performance Evaluation resource, is a set of tools that make video and document algorithm evaluation possible. The two main components, ViPER-Ground Truth and ViPER-Performance Evaluation, provide the ability to mark up videos and documents with ground truth and the ability to compare result data with ground truth, respectively. The extended toolkit, which currently only works on Solaris, provides a more complete solution, with scripting and the ability to generate charts.

Welcome to the ViPER Documentation

Please note that this document is the first in a set of five documents.

  1. Quick Start: This document, which describes how to install and set up ViPER.
  2. ViPER-GT: Describes the ground truth authoring tool and the data formats.
  3. ViPER-PE: Describes the performance evaluation tool and its metrics.
  4. Scripting ViPER: Describes various scripts to deal with multiple evaluations and make graphs displaying the results.
  5. Case Studies: Describes several use cases of ViPER, from design of GTF to evaluation.

Setting Up ViPER

Preparing for ViPER

ViPER is a Java program, and as such requires a working installation of Sun's Java2 virtual machine. Since the tools are quite resource hungry, it is recommended that the host computer have a minimum of 128 megabytes of RAM. Virtual machines for Linux, Windows, and Solaris are available at http://java.sun.com. Macintosh OS X comes with Java2 installed.

For the extended version of the software, with scripting and charting, Perl is required. Ask the system administrator to install the perl modules from the lamp web site at the link labeled "Perl Resources:" http://documents.cfar.umd.edu/LAMP/Media/Projects/ViPER/Software/PerlResources.tar.gz. On Windows, you may need to download a version of WinZip that supports gzip compression. WinZip is available at http://www.winzip.com/.

Installing ViPER-GT and ViPER-PE on a PC

  1. Download viper-lite.zip. A link can be found at: http://viper-toolkit.sourceforge.net/.
  2. Unzip the file to a new directory, for example c:\program files\viper. In Windows, this can be accomplished by double-clicking the downloaded file. When it asks you where to unzip it, type the above path into the box. (You will need a zip manager installed. If Windows does not know how to handle the file, try downloading WinZip.)
  3. Create a shortcut to [install directory]\viper-gt.jar. There are two options in Windows 2000. (XP, 9x offer something similar.)
    • Create one using Add Shortcut from Start...Settings...Taskbar & Start Menu's Advanced tab. (When you click the Add button, a Create Shortcut wizard will prompt you for the location of the file you would like to use. It will be viper-gt.jar, located in the folder you selected in step 2.)
    • Open the folder you created for ViPER. Right-click on viper-gt.jar, and select Create Shortcut. Drag the shortcut to your desktop, your Start menu, or your quick-start toolbar.
  4. Double click (or single-click, if you placed the shortcut in your start bar or quick start bar) on the 'viper-gt.jar' shortcut. ViPER-GT should appear. If it does not, the most likely cause is an out-of-date java installation. Download the latest version (1.4.2 and above should work fine) from http://java.sun.com/.
  5. Start using ViPER-GT! For more information, see the Tutorial.

Installing the Extended Package

  1. Installing the extended package requires tcsh or sh (it has been tested with tcsh and bash, but csh and ksh should work), Java2, and Perl. Ask you system administrator to install a version of Java2 and of Perl. If you wish to use the features described in the "Viz" manual, make sure the perl installation includes the appropriate versions of the GD and Chart libraries, as described above.
  2. Download the ViPER from: http://lamp.cfar.umd.edu/media/research/viper/viper.htm. Save it in directory above the one you with to contain it.
  3. Go to the directory containing the gziped software. Execute the following commands:
    1. gunzip viper-[date].tar.gz
    2. tar xf viper-[date].tar
  4. These commands will create a viper-[date] directory. Use the mv command to rename or move the directory to the location you wish to keep it, or use ln -s or GNU Stow to create a symbolic link to the directory.
  5. Change directory to the newly created viper directory. It should include a script called config.pl. Call perl config.pl. This program will create a viper.config file for use with csh and a viper-config.sh file for use with sh. These files sets the various environment variables necessary to run all of the various viper tools.
  6. To use viper, run the command source viper.config from csh and the command . viper-config.sh from sh. You may add this command to your shell init file. This will allow you to execute the following commands, among others:
    • viper-gt
    • viper-pe
    • gtf2xml
    • xml2gtf
    • RunEvaluation.pl