README

Voxel51 Platform JavaScript Client Library

A JavaScript client library built on Node.js for the Voxel51 Platform.

The library is implemented with ES6-style classes and uses async/await to deliver Promised-based asynchronous execution.

Available at https://github.com/voxel51/api-js.

Installation

To install the library, first clone it:

git clone https://github.com/voxel51/api-js

and then run the install script:

cd api-js
bash install.bash

Documentation

For full documentation of the Voxel51 Platform API, including usage of this client library, see the API Documentation.

To learn how to use this client library to create and run jobs that execute each of the analytics exposed on the Voxel51 Platform, see the Analytics Documentation.

For more information about using this client library to operate an application on the Voxel51 Platform, see the Applications Quickstart.

Quickstart

This section provides a brief guide to using the Platform API with this client library.

Authentication

To use the API, you must first create an account at https://console.voxel51.com and download an API token.

Keep your API token private; it is your access key to the API.

Each API request you make must be authenticated by your token. There are a variety of ways to activate your token; for a full description, see the Authentication Documentation.

A simple approach is to set the VOXEL51_API_TOKEN environment variable in your shell to point to your API token file:

export VOXEL51_API_TOKEN=/path/to/your/api-token.json

Alternatively, you can permanently activate a token by executing the following commands:

let voxel51 = require('.');

voxel51.users.auth.activateToken('/path/to/your/api-token.json');

In the latter case, your token is copied to ~/.voxel51/ and will be automatically used in all future sessions. A token can be deactivated via the voxel51.users.auth.deactivateToken() method.

After you have activated an API token, you have full access to the API.

API Sessions

To initialize an API session, issue the following commands:

let voxel51 = require('.');

let api = new voxel51.users.api.API();

Analytics

List available analytics:

api.listAnalytics().then(function(analytics) {
  // Use analytics
});

Get documentation for the analytic with the given ID:

// ID of the analytic
let analyticId = 'XXXXXXXX';

api.getAnalyticDoc(analyticId).then(function(doc) {
  // Use doc
});

Data

List uploaded data:

api.listData().then(function(data) {
  // Use data
});

Upload data to the cloud storage:

// Local path to the data
let dataPath = '/path/to/video.mp4';

api.uploadData(dataPath);

Jobs

List jobs you have created:

api.listJobs().then(function(jobs) {
  // Use jobs
});

Create a job request to perform an analytic on a data, where <analytic> is the name of the analytic to run, <data-id> is the ID of the data to process, and any <parameter> values are set as necessary to configre the analytic:

let jobRequest = new voxel51.users.jobs.JobRequest('<analytic>');
let inputPath = voxel51.users.jobs.RemoteDataPath.fromDataId('<data-id>');
jobRequest.setInput('<input>', inputPath);
jobRequest.setParameter('<parameter>', val);

console.log(jobRequest.toString());

Upload a job request:

let metadata = api.uploadJobRequest(jobRequest, '<job-name>');
let jobId = metadata.id;

Start a job:

api.startJob(jobId);

Get the status of a job:

api.getJobStatus(jobId).then(function(status) {
  // Use status
});

Download the output of a completed job:

// Local path to which to download the output
let outputPath = '/path/to/labels.json';

api.downloadJobOutput(jobId, outputPath).then(function() {
  console.log('Download complete!');
});

Improving Request Efficiency

A common pattern when interacting with the platform is to perform an operation to a list of data or jobs. In such cases, you can dramatically increase the efficiency of your code by taking advantage of the Promise-based nature of this library.

For example, the following code will run VehicleSense on a list of videos using Promise.all to wait for the asynchronous requests to complete:

let voxel51 = require('.');

let api = new voxel51.users.api.API();

async function runVehicleSense(paths) {
  // Upload all data
  let allData = await Promise.all(paths.map(api.uploadData));

  // Run VehicleSense jobs
  let promises = [];
  allData.forEach(function(data) {
    let jobRequest = new voxel51.users.jobs.JobRequest('voxel51/vehicle-sense');
    let remotePath = voxel51.users.jobs.RemoteDataPath.fromDataId(data.id);
    jobRequest.setInput('video', remotePath);
    let jobName = `vehicle-sense-${data.name}`;
    promises.push(api.uploadJobRequest(jobRequest, jobName, true));
  });

  return await Promise.all(promises);
}

// Run VehicleSense on all videos
let paths = ['1.mp4', '2.mp4', '3.mp4', ...];
let jobs = await runVehicleSense(paths);

Or, the following code will start all unstarted jobs on the platform, using Promise.all to wait for the asynchronous requests to complete:

let voxel51 = require('.');

let api = new voxel51.users.api.API();

async function startAllJobs() {
  // Get all unarchived jobs
  let jobsQuery = (new voxel51.users.query.JobsQuery()
    .addAllFields()
    .addSearch('archived', false));
  let result = await api.queryJobs(jobsQuery);
  let jobs = result.jobs;

  // Start all unstarted jobs
  let promises = [];
  jobs.forEach(function(job) {
    if (job.state === voxel51.users.jobs.JobState.READY) {
      promises.push(api.startJob(job.id));
    }
  });

  Promise.all(promises);
}

await startAllJobs();

Generating Documentation

This project uses JSDoc to generate its documentation from source. To generate the documentation, run:

bash docs/generate_docs.bash

To view the documentation, open the docs/build/index.html file in your browser.

@voxel51/api-js

Usage no npm install needed!