Instructions for 2D Traffic Sign Annotations

Traffic Sign Labeling Specifications 2

Signs to Label 2
Labeling Step-by-Step 2
Labeling Best Practices 3
Edge Cases 4
Examples 4
Signs not to Label 5
Traffic Sign Types 6
Occlusion and Truncation 18
facing_camera 19
Full Image Labeling Examples 23

1
Traffic Sign Labeling Specifications

Signs to Label
Each sign that is both
● relevant for the traffic behavior of road users
● issued by the government
must be labeled.
Note that this does not only apply to the most common metal signs mounted on poles. Signs can also be attached to
school buses, be foldable signs in construction zones or be placed next to crosswalks in the middle of the road.
Advertising posters, restaurant logos, banners, flags, etc. shall not be labeled.
Additional criteria:
● Signs whose bounding boxes are smaller than 5 pixels in either width or height do not have to be
labeled.
● Signs whose fronts are not visible to the camera must not be labeled.
● If you are unsure whether there is a traffic sign or not because of insufficient image quality, do not add
a label.
See this section for examples.

Labeling Step-by-Step
1. Draw a 2D bounding box around the traffic sign. This bounding
box should be defined by the highest, lowest, leftmost and
rightmost point of the sign.
2. Choose “traffic_sign” as the label for this bounding box.
3. Select the correct “traffic_sign_type”. For some common
signs, the exact type of the sign must be specified. Other traffic
signs will simply be labeled as “miscellaneous”. See this section.
4. [optional] If the type of the sign is “speed_limit_mph” or
“advisory_speed_mph”, then the field
“speed_limit_value” will appear. Type in the speed limit that
is displayed on the sign.
5. Decide whether the traffic sign is facing the camera, that means
whether its front roughly points towards the camera. As a rule of
thumb; for traffic signs that have a yaw rotation of less than 30 degrees in both directions, set
“facing_camera” to “true”. If you determine that the front of the traffic sign does not point towards
the camera, choose “false”. See this section for examples.
6. Estimate how much of the area of the traffic sign is occluded or truncated. Then choose the best
matching option from “occlusion”. See this section for examples.

2
Labeling Best Practices
● Annotate only the area of the traffic sign itself with a 2D bounding box, do not annotate any part of the
pole or other means of mounting.
● The bounding box around the traffic sign must include the whole front face of the sign as tightly as
possible. If sides of the sign are visible, these shall be excluded from the bounding box. Example:

● Label occluded or truncated signs in the image by guessing the occluded/truncated part as well as
possible. 2D boxes can extend outside the image boundaries. Don’t forget to set the “occlusion”.

3
Edge Cases
● Signs that have additional content printed on the same physical plate shall be labeled with one
bounding box which shall include the whole physical plate, including the additional content.

● Signs that have been marked with separate external measures such as flags or beacons, the annotated
bounding box shall include only the sign itself.

● For signs that have additional borders around them that are physically attached to the sign, the
annotated bounding box shall include both the sign and the border.

● For street name signs which have a small attachment with house numbers, ignore this attachment
when drawing a bounding box.

4
Examples

Signs not to Label

Example Images Why not label?

These are not
government-issued
traffic signs that control
driving behavior. Also,
they do not look similar
to government-issued
traffic signs.

5
Do not label electronic
billboards.

The front of the traffic

sign is not visible.

From the arrangement

of the road and the
parked cars, these
bright dots could be
traffic signs. But the
image resolution is not
good enough to be
certain. These objects
could also be something
else like advertisement
posters or people in
bright clothes.

6
Traffic Sign Types
Most of the signs are just labeled with the “miscellaneous” type. Some traffic signs, however, must be labeled with a
type for fine-grained differentiation. See the following table for which types to annotate for which sign.

Included Signs Traffic Sign Type

stop

yield

do_not_enter

7
one_way_left

one_way_right

no_left_turn

no_right_turn

no_right_turn_on_red

no_u_turn

8
no_u_turn_or_left_turn

speed_limit_mph

Note: For this type of

sign, the field
speed_limit shall be
annotated with the
actual speed limit in
miles per hour.

9
 yield_ahead

stop_ahead

advisory_speed_mph

Note: For this type of

sign, the field
speed_limit shall be
annotated with the
actual speed limit in
miles per hour.

All other traffic signs or such signs that resemble official traffic signs. This includes, but miscellaneous
is not limited to:

10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
Occlusion and Truncation

Example Images Occlusion to be labeled

not_occluded

around_25_percent

18
around_50_percent

aound_75_percent

19
facing_camera

Example Images facing_camera to be labeled

Remember that the fact that the front
of the sign is visible does not
necessarily mean that the sign is also
facing the camera.

20
False

21
True

22
Full Image Labeling Examples

This illustration demonstrates different traffic signs and how to label them:
● Signs that require labeling are identified by a green box.
● Objects that must not have labels are marked with a red box.

23