
Engineering Uber's Self-Driving Car Visualization Platform for the Web - cysin
https://eng.uber.com/atg-dataviz/
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aramadia
Was this a response to
[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/insid...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/inside-
waymos-secret-testing-and-simulation-facilities/537648/) ?

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jvolkman
The Waymo article focused on testing, both physical and virtual. This article
just describes the visualization tool that Uber uses to replay SDC logs. They
might use the same tool to control and view simulations, but the article
doesn't really touch on that.

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cmansley
I have a serious question. Should this be a web visualization? Doesn't all the
abstraction lead to performance hits? Tons of data needs to be pulled off the
hard drive, network, RAM and shoved into the graphics card. Is putting a web
browser in the middle of that pipeline the most efficient use of resources? I
feel like it is a hammer situation.

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breerly
Think of the end application: internal tooling. Is it "good enough"?

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cmansley
I am thinking about the end application. All the more reason to ignore all of
the benefits of a web solution and spin the highest performance version.
Because performance is critical when viewing tons of cameras and lidar with
near-realtime playback.

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donald_knuth
Save and replay is how this data is usually used. Run headless in real time
and fancy complex gui upon replay.

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Animats
That's a reasonable tool. Everybody in self-driving has something similar. Now
if they let others look at the data collected by their vehicles, that would be
interesting.

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waynenilsen
see also [https://github.com/uber/deck.gl](https://github.com/uber/deck.gl)

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d--b
Great! Now Uber engineers will be able to VR into god view.

Perhaps the phones of people around should record video all the time to
improve the view!

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sAbakumoff
there were 2 UBER news on HN when I looked at it:

1) U.S. probes Uber for possible bribery law violations

2) this one

It's like the perfect picture of what Uber is doing : violates the law and
builds the future. I am wondering if it will change with the new CEO.

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scarmig
Builds the future, meaning builds something Google had N years ago?

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petraeus
Pretty obvious attempt by uber to demonstrate their self-driving abilities to
a national audience skeptical of their progress after having been ousted
stealing technology secrets from waymo.

In short its propaganda, I have no doubts waymo is light years ahead of the
current efforts of uber. Uber is trying to change the public perception in
their favor.

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inverse_pi
Competition is good. I would be really worried if Waymo is the only one
demonstrating their visualization capabilities. It also encourages more
showcase of technologies which is generally good for the public. SDC has been
too secretive of an arm race. You can take sides all you want but I think this
move of Uber is one that is beneficial to everyone.

