The [COCO](https://cocodataset.org/#home) (Common Objects in Context) dataset is a large-scale object detection, segmentation, and captioning dataset. It is designed to encourage research on a wide variety of object categories and is commonly used for benchmarking [computer vision](https://www.ultralytics.com/glossary/computer-vision-cv) models. It is an essential dataset for researchers and developers working on object detection, segmentation, and pose estimation tasks.
- COCO contains 330K images, with 200K images having annotations for object detection, segmentation, and captioning tasks.
- The dataset comprises 80 object categories, including common objects like cars, bicycles, and animals, as well as more specific categories such as umbrellas, handbags, and sports equipment.
- Annotations include object bounding boxes, segmentation masks, and captions for each image.
- COCO provides standardized evaluation metrics like [mean Average Precision](https://www.ultralytics.com/glossary/mean-average-precision-map) (mAP) for object detection, and mean Average [Recall](https://www.ultralytics.com/glossary/recall) (mAR) for segmentation tasks, making it suitable for comparing model performance.
3.**Test2017**: This subset consists of 20K images used for testing and benchmarking the trained models. Ground truth annotations for this subset are not publicly available, and the results are submitted to the [COCO evaluation server](https://codalab.lisn.upsaclay.fr/competitions/7384) for performance evaluation.
The COCO dataset is widely used for training and evaluating [deep learning](https://www.ultralytics.com/glossary/deep-learning-dl) models in object detection (such as YOLO, Faster R-CNN, and SSD), [instance segmentation](https://www.ultralytics.com/glossary/instance-segmentation) (such as Mask R-CNN), and keypoint detection (such as OpenPose). The dataset's diverse set of object categories, large number of annotated images, and standardized evaluation metrics make it an essential resource for computer vision researchers and practitioners.
A YAML (Yet Another Markup Language) file is used to define the dataset configuration. It contains information about the dataset's paths, classes, and other relevant information. In the case of the COCO dataset, the `coco.yaml` file is maintained at [https://github.com/ultralytics/ultralytics/blob/main/ultralytics/cfg/datasets/coco.yaml](https://github.com/ultralytics/ultralytics/blob/main/ultralytics/cfg/datasets/coco.yaml).
To train a YOLOv8n model on the COCO dataset for 100 [epochs](https://www.ultralytics.com/glossary/epoch) with an image size of 640, you can use the following code snippets. For a comprehensive list of available arguments, refer to the model [Training](../../modes/train.md) page.
The COCO dataset contains a diverse set of images with various object categories and complex scenes. Here are some examples of images from the dataset, along with their corresponding annotations:
- **Mosaiced Image**: This image demonstrates a training batch composed of mosaiced dataset images. Mosaicing is a technique used during training that combines multiple images into a single image to increase the variety of objects and scenes within each training batch. This helps improve the model's ability to generalize to different object sizes, aspect ratios, and contexts.
The example showcases the variety and complexity of the images in the COCO dataset and the benefits of using mosaicing during the training process.
## Citations and Acknowledgments
If you use the COCO dataset in your research or development work, please cite the following paper:
title={Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Context},
author={Tsung-Yi Lin and Michael Maire and Serge Belongie and Lubomir Bourdev and Ross Girshick and James Hays and Pietro Perona and Deva Ramanan and C. Lawrence Zitnick and Piotr Dollár},
We would like to acknowledge the COCO Consortium for creating and maintaining this valuable resource for the computer vision community. For more information about the COCO dataset and its creators, visit the [COCO dataset website](https://cocodataset.org/#home).
The [COCO dataset](https://cocodataset.org/#home) (Common Objects in Context) is a large-scale dataset used for [object detection](https://www.ultralytics.com/glossary/object-detection), segmentation, and captioning. It contains 330K images with detailed annotations for 80 object categories, making it essential for benchmarking and training computer vision models. Researchers use COCO due to its diverse categories and standardized evaluation metrics like mean Average [Precision](https://www.ultralytics.com/glossary/precision) (mAP).
These models vary in size, mAP, and inference speed, providing options for different performance and resource requirements.
### How is the COCO dataset structured and how do I use it?
The COCO dataset is split into three subsets:
1.**Train2017**: 118K images for training.
2.**Val2017**: 5K images for validation during training.
3.**Test2017**: 20K images for benchmarking trained models. Results need to be submitted to the [COCO evaluation server](https://codalab.lisn.upsaclay.fr/competitions/7384) for performance evaluation.
The dataset's YAML configuration file is available at [coco.yaml](https://github.com/ultralytics/ultralytics/blob/main/ultralytics/cfg/datasets/coco.yaml), which defines paths, classes, and dataset details.
