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US City Block

US city block 3D environment

Since R2019b

Description

The US City Block scene is a 3D environment of a US city block that contains 15 intersections and 30 traffic lights. The scene is rendered using RoadRunner.

US City Block scene

Setup

To simulate a driving algorithm in this scene:

  1. Add a Simulation 3D Scene Configuration block to your Simulink® model.

  2. In this block, set the Scene source parameter to Default Scenes.

  3. Set the enabled Scene name parameter to US city block.

Objects

Examples

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Explore the 3D US City Block scene and inspect its dimensions by using a corresponding 2D top-view image of the scene.

You can use this image to inspect the scene before simulation and choose starting coordinates for vehicles. For details on using these images to select waypoints for path-following applications, see the Select Waypoints for Unreal Engine Simulation example.

Load the 2D spatial referencing object that corresponds to the scene. This imref2d object describes the relationship between the pixels in the image and the world coordinates of the scene.

data = load('sim3d_SpatialReferences.mat');
spatialRef = data.spatialReference.USCityBlock
spatialRef = 
  imref2d with properties:

           XWorldLimits: [-250 210]
           YWorldLimits: [-235 225]
              ImageSize: [4776 4776]
    PixelExtentInWorldX: 0.0963
    PixelExtentInWorldY: 0.0963
    ImageExtentInWorldX: 460
    ImageExtentInWorldY: 460
       XIntrinsicLimits: [0.5000 4.7765e+03]
       YIntrinsicLimits: [0.5000 4.7765e+03]

Display the image corresponding to the scene. Use the spatial referencing object to display the axes in the world coordinates of the scene. Units are in meters.

By default, the imshow function displays Y-axis values that increase from top to bottom. To align with the Automated Driving Toolbox™ world coordinate system, set the Y-direction to 'normal' so that Y-axis values increase from bottom to top.

The image displays only the area of the scene containing the city block. The full scene has a length and width of 2040 meters.

figure
fileName = 'sim3d_USCityBlock.jpg';
I = imshow(fileName,spatialRef);
set(gca,'YDir','normal')
xlabel('X (m)')
ylabel('Y (m)')

Zoom in on the origin of the scene. Place a marker at the origin.

xlim([-35 35])
ylim([-35 35])

hold on
plot(0,0,'o','MarkerFaceColor','r','MarkerEdgeColor','k','MarkerSize',8)
offset = 1; % px
text(offset,offset,'(0,0)','Color','w','FontWeight','bold','FontSize',12)
hold off

Each intersection in the scene contains two traffic light groups. These traffic lights change color based on common US traffic light patterns. All roads in the scene are one-way and follow the direction of traffic shown here.

Tips

  • If you have the Automated Driving Toolbox™ Interface for Unreal Engine Projects support package, then you can modify this scene. In the Unreal Engine project file that comes with the support package, this scene is named USCityBlock.

    For more details on customizing scenes, see Customize Unreal Engine Scenes for Automated Driving.

Version History

Introduced in R2019b

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