Automating the Transportation Design to Simulator Model Process

This development project was proposed to the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) in the SAFER-SIM proposal under Theme Areas: 1. transportation safety affecting vehicular roadway users, and 2. enhancing roadway design processes. The purpose of this project was to refine software tools and algorithms that automate the conversion of transportation design models into NADS miniSim™ driving simulation environments. Outreach to miniSim users was made in hopes of developing a consortium of simulation laboratories interested in working with Departments of Transportation research or design activities, including demonstrations of proposed designs. Several sites have in the past expressed interest in building or converting tile model environments from transportation design models. A small number of models were submitted by one site, but the lack of necessary design model attributes and inability to provide them required the creation of smaller design models than would have been available through the consortium. Converter improvements were made to the existing tool by integrating XML and spline libraries and algorithm improvements. Several conversions were made from transportation design models into driving simulator models. For purposes of this development, driving simulator models are defined as the visual environment model and associated logical meta-data necessary for driving the model using the NADS miniSim driving simulator. As part of the project, different simulator formats were investigated to identify 3rd party simulator formats that might be suitable for the converter to support in addition to NADS miniSim formats. Such an approach could benefit the broader driving simulator and transportation research communities by expanding their capabilities to use design models. Developing a robust converter requires that different types of roadway design models be used to exercise converter algorithms and work flow. The test cases vary in complexity and scale and are detailed in section 3 and include simple single roadways, hills, curved roads and intersections.

• Record URL:
  http://safersim.nads-sc.uiowa.edu/final_reports/UI%201%20Y3_report.pdf
• 
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This document was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation, University Transportation Centers Program.
• Corporate Authors:

  Safety Research Using Simulation University Transportation Center (SaferSim)

  University of Iowa
  Iowa City, IA  United States  52242

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • Allen, Shawn
  • Horosewski, Vincent
  • Zhao, Zuoyuan
  • Kueny, Adam
• Publication Date: 2017-7

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Appendices; Figures; Glossary; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 41p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Algorithms; Driving simulators; Highway design; Information processing; Software
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Design; Highways; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01667758
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: UTC, TRIS, ATRI, USDOT
• Created Date: Apr 30 2018 5:20PM