BoxMOT

18.0.0 verified Sat May 09 auth: no python

BoxMOT provides pluggable state-of-the-art multi-object tracking modules for segmentation, object detection, and pose estimation models. Current version 18.0.0 requires Python <3.13,>=3.9 and follows a fast release cadence.

pip install boxmot

Common errors

error ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'boxmot.trackers' ↓

cause Import path changed in v18; old code uses boxmot.trackers submodule.

fix

Change import to from boxmot import BoTSORT.

error TypeError: update() missing 1 required positional argument: 'img' ↓

cause The update method now requires an image argument for feature computation.

fix

Pass an image array as second argument: tracker.update(detections, image).

error ValueError: detections array shape mismatch; expected (N,6) ↓

cause The detections array must have shape (N,6) with columns (x1,y1,x2,y2,conf,class_id).

fix

Ensure detections are formatted as 2D array with 6 columns per detection.

error ImportError: cannot import name 'create_tracker' from 'boxmot' ↓

cause The create_tracker helper function was removed in v18.

fix

Instantiate tracker classes directly: from boxmot import BoTSORT; tracker = BoTSORT().

Warnings

breaking In version 18.0.0, the import paths changed: trackers are now directly under boxmot, not boxmot.trackers. ↓

fix Use `from boxmot import BoTSORT` instead of `from boxmot.trackers import BoTSORT`.

breaking The signature of the update method changed. The method now requires a second argument (image) for features, and the return format may differ. ↓

fix Call tracker.update(detections, image) where image is a numpy array (H,W,3). Review return structure.

deprecated The creation of a tracker without explicit configuration will use defaults; future versions may require config. ↓

fix Pass a configuration dictionary to the tracker constructor, e.g., BoTSORT(config={...}).

Install

pip install boxmot[ultralytics]

Imports

BoTSORT
wrong
```
from boxmot.trackers import BoTSORT
```
correct
```
from boxmot import BoTSORT
```
In older versions trackers were under boxmot.trackers; v18 uses top-level exports.

StrongSORT

wrong

from boxmot.trackers.strongsort import StrongSORT

correct

from boxmot import StrongSORT

Direct import from boxmot is the correct modern pattern.

Quickstart

Initialize BoTSORT tracker and update with dummy detections.

from boxmot import BoTSORT
import numpy as np

# Initialize tracker
tracker = BoTSORT()

# Simulate detections: [x1, y1, x2, y2, conf, class_id]
detections = np.array([[100, 100, 200, 200, 0.9, 0]])

# Update with a dummy image (for embeddings, pass real image if needed)
results = tracker.update(detections, np.zeros((480, 640, 3), dtype=np.uint8))
print(results)