Using the CLI
The toolkit command-line interface is available as vot (or python -m vot). It is the main entry point for workspace setup, tracker testing, evaluation, analysis, report generation, and result packaging.
General usage
vot [global-options] <command> [command-options]
Global options:
–debug, -d - enable debug mode and verbose logs,
–registry <path> - add tracker registry path (directory or registry file).
Get command help:
vot --help
vot <command> --help
Commands overview
initialize (alias: configure) - initialize workspace,
test - run tracker integration test on synthetic (or provided) sequence,
evaluate (alias: run) - execute experiments for one or more trackers,
analysis (aliases: analyse, analyze) - compute analysis outputs,
report (alias: document) - generate report documents,
pack - package tracker results for submission.
Initialize a workspace
Initialize a workspace and configure stack/dataset.
vot initialize [--workspace <path>] [--nodownload] [<stack>]
Arguments and options:
<stack> - optional stack identifier,
–workspace <path> - workspace directory (default: current directory),
–nodownload - skip dataset download from stack metadata.
Examples:
vot initialize vots2025/main --workspace ./workspace
vot configure --workspace ./workspace --nodownload
Test a tracker
Run tracker integration test.
vot test [--visualize] [--sequence <path>] [--ignore <ids>] <tracker>
Arguments and options:
<tracker> - tracker identifier from registry,
–visualize, -g - show visualized test run,
–sequence, -s <path> - use custom sequence instead of synthetic sequence,
–ignore <id1,id2,…> - ignore selected object identifiers.
Example:
vot test -g mytracker
Run evaluation
Run experiment stack for one or more trackers.
vot evaluate [--workspace <path>] [--force] [--persist] [--experiments <ids>] <tracker> [<tracker> ...]
Arguments and options:
<tracker> [<tracker> …] - one or more tracker identifiers,
–workspace <path> - workspace directory,
–force, -f - force full rerun,
–persist, -p - continue even when errors are encountered,
–experiments <id1,id2,…> - run only selected experiments.
Example:
vot evaluate --workspace ./workspace --force mytracker
Perform analysis
Compute analysis results from evaluated tracker outputs.
vot analysis [--workspace <path>] [--format json|yaml] [--name <name>] [--sequences <ids>] [--experiments <ids>] [<tracker> ...]
Arguments and options:
[<tracker> …] - optional list of trackers (if omitted, available results are used),
–workspace <path> - workspace directory,
–format json|yaml - analysis output format (default: json),
–name <name> - output name (default: generated timestamp),
–sequences <id1,id2,…> - include only selected sequences,
–experiments <id1,id2,…> - include only selected experiments.
Example:
vot analysis --workspace ./workspace --format json --sequences bag,ball mytracker
Generate a report
Generate report files from analysis/evaluation data.
vot report [--workspace <path>] [--format html|latex|plots] [--name <name>] [--sequences <ids>] [--experiments <ids>] [<tracker> ...]
Arguments and options:
[<tracker> …] - optional trackers to include,
–workspace <path> - workspace directory,
–format html|latex|plots - output type (default: html),
–name <name> - output name,
–sequences <id1,id2,…> - include only selected sequences,
–experiments <id1,id2,…> - include only selected experiments.
Example:
vot report --workspace ./workspace --format html mytracker
Pack tracker results
Create a submission archive for a tracker. This command is needed for participation in VOT challenges, but can also be used to create a standardized output archive for any tracker.
vot pack [--workspace <path>] <tracker>
Arguments and options:
<tracker> - tracker identifier,
–workspace <path> - workspace directory.
Example:
vot pack --workspace ./workspace mytracker