VGG image annotator not exporting in COCO format

Question

Im trying to convert my VGG image annotator results into COCO format, but it does not add the categories, and hence the category list is empty.

The following is my exported COCO format. Please see the empty category list. Thanks

{"info":{"year":2021,"version":"1.0","description":"VIA project exported to COCO format using VGG Image Annotator (http://www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~vgg/software/via/)","contributor":"","url":"http://www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~vgg/software/via/","date_created":"Mon May 17 2021 12:42:52 GMT+0500 (Pakistan Standard Time)"},"images":[{"id":20210426,"width":1024,"height":768,"file_name":"20210426_142456.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":768,"height":1024,"file_name":"20210426_143326.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":768,"height":1024,"file_name":"20210426_143357.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":1024,"height":768,"file_name":"20210426_143423.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":768,"height":1024,"file_name":"20210426_143451.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":1024,"height":768,"file_name":"20210426_143614.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":768,"height":1024,"file_name":"20210426_143639.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":1024,"height":768,"file_name":"20210426_144357.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":1024,"height":768,"file_name":"20210426_144453.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":768,"height":1024,"file_name":"20210426_144519.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":1024,"height":768,"file_name":"20210426_150226.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":768,"height":1024,"file_name":"20210426_150231.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":768,"height":1024,"file_name":"20210426_150237.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":768,"height":1024,"file_name":"20210426_150251.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":768,"height":1024,"file_name":"20210426_150253.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":1024,"height":768,"file_name":"20210426_150301.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":1024,"height":768,"file_name":"20210426_150302.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":1024,"height":768,"file_name":"20210426_150336.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":1024,"height":768,"file_name":"20210426_150338.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":1024,"height":768,"file_name":"20210426_150343.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":1024,"height":768,"file_name":"20210426_152459.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":768,"height":1024,"file_name":"20210426_153542.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":768,"height":1024,"file_name":"20210426_153600.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":768,"height":1024,"file_name":"20210426_154327.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":768,"height":1024,"file_name":"20210426_154345.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":1024,"height":768,"file_name":"20210426_154429.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":1024,"height":768,"file_name":"20210426_154434.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""},{"id":20210426,"width":768,"height":1024,"file_name":"20210426_154930.jpg","license":0,"date_captured":""}],"annotations":[],"licenses":[{"id":0,"name":"Unknown License","url":""}],"categories":[]}  

Answer 1

VGG image annotator needs to have at least one 'region attribute' to be of the type 'dropdown'. VGG does export the annotations in the COCO format if this is true.