VOTS2026 Challenge

Visual Object Tracking and Segmentation challenge VOTS2026 is a continuation of the VOTS2023 and VOTS2024 challenges, which no longer distinct between single- and multi-target tracking nor between short- and long-term tracking. It requires tracking one or more targets simultaneously by segmentation over long or short sequences, while the targets may disappear during tracking and reappear later in the video.

Four challenges are organized

  • VOTS2026 Challenge (Refreshed!) – Continuation of the VOTS2025 challenge with the task to track one or more general targets over short-term or long-term sequences by segmentation. The dataset is refreshed with new challenging sequences.
  • VOTSt2026 Challenge – Continuation of the VOTSt2025 transformative object tracking challenge, which considers general objects undergoing a topological transformation, such as vegetables cut into pieces, machines disassembled, etc.
  • VOTSp2026 Challenge (NEW!) – A new point-tracking challenge, which considers tracking several manually defined points. Challenging sequences have been selected to construct a new test set for his challenge.
  • VOTSr2026 Challenge (NEW!) – A new referring tracking challenge, with the task to segment objects in video based on descriptions.

Important dates (tentative)

  • April 25, 2026 - All challenge details available on the website
  • May 13, 2026 - All challenges open
  • June 22, 2026 - Results submission deadline
  • July 13, 2026 - Winners announcement

Sponsors

The VOTS2026 challenge is sponsored by the Faculty of Computer and Information Science, University of Ljubljana, The Academic and Research Network of Slovenia - ARNES, University of Birmingham, and Wallenberg AI - Autonomous Systems and Software Program WASP.