What is the practical application of this?
AirSim: open-source simulator for autonomous vehicles
51–57 of 57 posts
Re: AirSim: open-source simulator for autonomous vehicles
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good that autonomous driving companies won't pay me for my contribution to the software that underpins their R&D?
One perk of it being open source is that you can take your payment in "benefiting the world" instead of cash. You're given the platform to improve it if you want; expecting some other kind of compensation for addressing your own complaint doesn't seem realistic.
"My own complaint" is one on which the success of autonomous vehicles hinges. It's not an arbitrary critique at all -- all these things will be misclassified and mistreated unless explicitly included in the training process (until ML gets smarter). The fat tail strikes again.
"Benefiting the world" sounds great except we're embedded in a capitalist system for which the net gain on utility from this action is negative -- the super-corporations capitalizing on my unpaid work will further contribute to the economic inequality that beleaguers everyone who works for a wage.
Re: AirSim: open-source simulator for autonomous vehicles
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did not do a code review but I would not be surprised if they were using Unreal's default vehicle simulation; which, as you noted, is indeed sub-par. It's honestly a very challenging task to get vehicle physics to accurately replicate real cars, and the systems which are out there (commonly used by manufacturers to make advertisement renderings) are proprietary and expensive .
There is a physical car designed to be repainted (like a motion capture actor) in CGI. It solves physics by using actual physics. http://www.themill.com/portfolio/3002/the-blackbird%C2%AE
In that case you are limited to real terrain only, your replication goes as far as your recording.
Re: AirSim: open-source simulator for autonomous vehicles
#54I just downloaded this last weekend! I’m trying to find a good simulator where I can import models generated with photogrammetry. I’ve been using a cell phone camera and OpenSfM + OpenMVS to make 3D models of real world environments, and I want to be able to run them in sim. I see this is built on Unity. In the past I tried UnrealEngine but it was such a big mess of software for simple RL tasks. I’ll have to see if U…
This is quite cool, why cameras only though? Intel realsense, ultrasound? Are you avoiding them due to cost?
Hello and thanks! No I am not avoiding either of those due to cost. I’ve worked with ultrasonics on a robot before and I found them pretty unimpressive. I have seen a demo of some advanced ultrasonics but the guy also told me he patented the technology. Normal ping pong ultrasonics return such ambiguous information they aren’t very useful. Regarding intel realsense, they have two different technologies. Some realsense devices are stereo cameras, so they are “just cameras” in the sense of this discussion. But I’d rather run the algorithms myself and build a complete perception system than use the built in computation of for example the realsense tracking camera. The other technology they use is structured light, and such technology doesn’t work well or at all in sunny environments. I want to build a complete perception and navigation stack for outdoor robots, and aside from some sensors inside the robot, cameras are the technology I’m most interested in learning how to use. I just think cameras are the future. Passive vision is how most every living thing on earth perceives the world.
Re: AirSim: open-source simulator for autonomous vehicles
#55I just downloaded this last weekend! I’m trying to find a good simulator where I can import models generated with photogrammetry. I’ve been using a cell phone camera and OpenSfM + OpenMVS to make 3D models of real world environments, and I want to be able to run them in sim. I see this is built on Unity. In the past I tried UnrealEngine but it was such a big mess of software for simple RL tasks. I’ll have to see if U…
This sounds super cool! Can you say a bit more about your OpenSfM + OpenMVS stack? I've been idly interested in building 3d models from cell phone video for a while.
Thanks! Yeah I’m essentially running OpenSfM exactly as described in their documentation usage example. Then on that page they also show how to export to OpenMVS, and from there I follow similar example usage documentation from OpenMVS. OpenSfM has a config file and the defaults are fine, but I’d recommend reading the description for each possible parameter so you know what to tweak if you don’t like the default results. Oh and OpenMVS uses a lot of memory if you use lots of photos, but remember you can use swap. At first I used GCE instances with huge amounts of physical ram and that was a silly waste of money in hindsight. I simply didn’t think of using swap at first.
Re: AirSim: open-source simulator for autonomous vehicles
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
One perk of it being open source is that you can take your payment in "benefiting the world" instead of cash. You're given the platform to improve it if you want; expecting some other kind of compensation for addressing your own complaint doesn't seem realistic.
"My own complaint" is one on which the success of autonomous vehicles hinges. It's not an arbitrary critique at all -- all these things will be misclassified and mistreated unless explicitly included in the training process (until ML gets smarter). The fat tail strikes again. "Benefiting the world" sounds great except we're embedded in a capitalist system for which the net gain on utility from this action is negative…
There are more and more methods of getting funding for contributing to open source, for example https://opencollective.com/
Re: AirSim: open-source simulator for autonomous vehicles
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
"My own complaint" is one on which the success of autonomous vehicles hinges. It's not an arbitrary critique at all -- all these things will be misclassified and mistreated unless explicitly included in the training process (until ML gets smarter). The fat tail strikes again. "Benefiting the world" sounds great except we're embedded in a capitalist system for which the net gain on utility from this action is negative…
There are more and more methods of getting funding for contributing to open source, for example https://opencollective.com/
All open source is not equal. Fetishizing "open source," without considering the use cases and who may profit from it, is not something I feel comfortable doing.
I'm not ragging on open source as a concept, just that this example particularly is a bad one for justifying its utility.