As many of you know Lidar News has been a long standing proponent of the need for standards. I think most people in the 3D laser scanning industry will agree that ASTM E57 has led to increased productivity and improved communication.
In 2005 a visionary group which included Daimler Driving Simulator, Stuttgart and VIRES Simulationstechnologie GmbH started the OpenDrive initiative. The idea was to create a standard for driving simulators. The first release of the OpenDrive standard was in 2005.
Now you may be thinking, what do driving simulators have to do with 3D laser scanning?
A quick look at the image above should give you a big clue, especially if you are in the mobile lidar business. What I wonder is where they got this kind of information before mobile lidar.
OpenDRIVE files which are in XML format are designed to describe entire road networks with respect to all data belonging to the road environment. They do not describe the entities acting on or interacting with the road. The OpenDRIVE data is made available to e.g. Vehicle Dynamics and Traffic Simulation via a layer of routines for the evaluation of the information contained in the file.
OpenDRIVE is managed by VIRES Simulationstechnologie GmbH and the user community. The standard is reviewed and released by a core team of driving simulation experts. With the publication in 2006 members of BMW Forschung und Technik GmbH, Daimler AG, DLR e.V., Fraunhofer-Institut IVI, Krauss-Maffei Wegmann GmbH & Co. KG, Rheinmetal Defence Electronics GmbH and VIRES Simulationstechnologie GmbH joined the initiative. The associated website maintained by VIRES GmbH is intended to be the focal point for all activities involving OpenDRIVE.
Now if you are still thinking, why should I care about driving simulation then you will be interested to learn that in order for autonomous vehicles to be properly tested and certified that they will have to log millions of miles in driving simulators. This should create significant demand for mobile lidar data in the OpenDrive format.
For a more detailed discussion of this topic click here.
For more information on OpenDrive click here.
>
