What is VARS?
The Video Annotation and Reference System (VARS) is a software interface and database system that provides tools for describing, cataloging, retrieving, and viewing the visual, descriptive, and quantitative data associated with video. Developed by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) for annotating deep-sea video data, VARS is currently being used to describe over 3000 dives by our remotely operated vehicles (ROV). VARS has allowed MBARI scientists to produce numerous quanititative and qualitative scientific publications based on video data.
VARS is a suite of 3 applications: Annotation, Knowledgebase, and Query. All three applications are written in Java and have been tested on Windows PCs and Macs. VARS can be used to annotate video from either VCRs that support RS422 control or movie files, such as QuickTime and AVI movies.
Screenshots
News
2009-06-10 - The SVN trunk has been deployed to MBARI for internal use. The JPA stuff is going slow, I won't need it until next year with some new projects coming down the pipe. In the meantime I've posted the code at http://code.google.com/p/vars-redux/
2009-06-10 - The SVN trunk (currently version 5.0-SNAPSHOT) seems to be stable for use. I'm still working on the JPA layer though; when I get that working I'll roll out a new release. Apple has also announced a September release date for Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), so we're working on a code for frame-capture that no longer depends on QuickTime for Java. (QuickTime for Java is deprecated in 10.6)
2009-06-03 - Apple is breaking QuickTime for Java faster than I can keep up. Framecapture works fine across platforms but annotating video files doesn't seem to work on Windows anymore. More to come.
2009-03-31 - I posted a special gift for all the folks attending MBARI for the imaging workshop...a new VARS release! This release has updated knowledgebase data straight from the latest and greatest that we're using at MBARI.
2009-02-13 - There are now 2 branches in the Subversion repository. The HEAD branch is being re-factored to support the replacement of Castor JDO with alternative persistence technologies. I'm also working on a JPA implementation for VARS that will be part of this branch. The vars-4.x branch is the current stable branch and represents the code base that we are currently using internally at MBARI. We are working on 2 additional VARS applications. One for the annotation of image mosaics, in alpha testing at MBARI, and another one for allowing classrooms to annotate videos from the Eye-in-the-Sea as part of an education module series. In other news, MBARI just had the first test dive with our shiny new ROV Doc Ricketts.
2009-02-06 - I added support for Google 'Ocean'. The Google folks recently release a new Google Earth that allows for placement of sub-sea data in true 3D; it's very cool. The vars-4.x branch now supports exporting query results as 3D KML files. I'll roll out a release with this included in the next few weeks. Here's a sample KML file from the VARS Query application