This Blender add-on lets you create OpenDRIVE and OpenSCENARIO based scenarios for testing of advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous driving functions.
Let's assume that we work with a Debian based Linux distribution and Blender has been downloaded and installed to
/opt/blender/
Then we first need to install the scenarigeneration library into the Blender Python environment since the add-on uses the library as a backend to write OpenDRIVE and OpenSCENARIO files. The scenariogeneration lib uses pyclothoids which is written in C++ under the hood. Therefore make sure the Python headers are installed to be able to compile pyclothoids during the installation of scenariogeneration with pip
sudo apt install python3.9-dev
then to make the pip installation coming with Blender find the headers
export CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/include/python3.9/
The above two lines might be slightly different when using a non Debian based Linux distribution. Next, navigate to your Blender included Python installation
cd /opt/blender/2.93/python/bin
if pip is not there already then run
sudo ./python3.9 -m ensurepip
now install the lib
sudo -E ./pip3 install scenariogeneration
where the -E makes sudo preserve the exported environment variable. Note that
sudo is not required in case Blender is installed to the user home directory.
For the esmini export functionality we also need to install
OpenSceneGraph to have the osgconv tool
available. This is necessary because Blender is unable to directly export to the
.osgb scenegraph format, while esmini can only process this particular format.
On a Debian/Ubuntu/Mint system this can be achieved with
sudo apt install openscenegraph
If you manually install OpenSceneGraph make sure that osgconv can be found
through your PATH environment variable, otherwise the export for esmini will
fail.
Finally download the driving scenario generator release .zip archive. Open Blender and go to Edit -> Preferences -> Add-ons. Click "Install...". Select the .zip archive and confirm.
When you are in the Blender "Layout" workspace press N or click the little arrow next to the navigation gizmo to toggle the sidebar. Click Driving Scenario Creator in the sidebar. From here you can create roads and vehicles using the mouse by clicking the buttons in the "Driving Scenario Creator" menu. Add additional Blender objects as desired. Then export everything together by clicking Export driving scenario. Choose a directory for the export and confirm.
First install esmini. Preferably to
/opt/esmini and then put /opt/esmini/bin it in your PATH environment
variable with an export PATH=$PATH:/opt/esmini/bin at the end of the
~/.bashrc.
With esmini available the exported scenario can be run with
cd <export_directory>
esmini --osc xosc/export.xosc --window 50 50 800 400
The source code of this tool is distributed under the GPL version 3.0 license as required for all Blender add-ons. Note, that this does not imply that the tool can not be used in a commercial context. In fact, there is probably no issue using it in the same way as you would use Blender itself, Linux or GCC since you will probably not be modifying the source code and/or linking against it without contributing back your changes.
Furthermore, if your enterprise has already reached a state where open source software contribution is possible or your business has embraced open source software long ago, your contributions and pull requests are welcome if they are maintainable.
Credits go to
- pyoscx/scenarigeneration developers for the .xodr/.xosc generating/writing lib used as backend
- Archipack add-on developer(s) for general Blender add-on tool inspiration
- Blender Add Curve: Extra Objects extension authors for inspiration on ring segments
Please open issues and pull requests on GitHub to discuss openly. For private support inquiries contact the repository owner via email, Twitter or create an issue to initiate the communication. If you consider contributing large new features please consider to have a discussion before beginning with the clean implementation.