Generate a COCO File from Dropbox

Background

Assess Images projects are created from a COCO-format JSON file describing the images to be mapped. This page provides a Python script that produces a minimal COCO file ({ "images": [...] }) from a folder of images hosted on Dropbox, so they can be referenced by public URL. The script also uploads the resulting JSON back to the same Dropbox folder.

Caution

Ongoing updates to MapSwipe and Dropbox may render this script out-of-date.

Utility script: generate_coco_from_dropbox.py

For the Google Drive equivalent see Generate COCO File from Google Drive.

Prerequisites

  • A Dropbox account: https://www.dropbox.com/register.
  • A new Dropbox app: https://www.dropbox.com/developers/apps.
    • Choose an API: Scoped access.
    • Choose the type of access: Full Dropbox.
    • Name your app: your-app-name.
  • The following Scoped App permissions enabled on the app:
    • files.metadata.read
    • files.content.write
    • files.content.read
    • sharing.write
    • sharing.read
  • A generated access token (from the app settings → Generated access token).
  • uv installed.
  • A Dropbox folder containing the images to be exported.

Creation Steps

  1. Copy the folder path in Dropbox.

  2. Copy the generated access token from Dropbox.

  3. Run the script:

    # Help
uv run generate_coco_from_dropbox.py --help

# Usage
uv run generate_coco_from_dropbox.py "DROPBOX_ACCESS_TOKEN" "FOLDER_PATHNAME_IN_DROPBOX" "DESTINATION_EXPORT_FILE_NAME_IN_DROPBOX"

# Example
uv run generate_coco_from_dropbox.py sl.yourAccessTokenHere "/COCO TEST" "coco_export.json"

  4. Download the exported COCO JSON from the link printed in the terminal, or directly from your Dropbox folder.