Skip to content

drawtonomy vs CommonRoad Scenario Designer

The CommonRoad Scenario Designer is part of the CommonRoad ecosystem maintained by TUM’s Cyber-Physical Systems group. It is documented in the IEEE paper “CommonRoad Scenario Designer: An Open-Source Toolbox for Map Conversion and Scenario Creation for Autonomous Vehicles” and available on GitHub and PyPI.

What CommonRoad Scenario Designer covers (per the GitHub repository):

  • Bidirectional map conversion: OpenDRIVE ↔ CommonRoad, SUMO ↔ CommonRoad, and Lanelet / Lanelet2 ↔ CommonRoad.
  • One-way conversion: OpenStreetMap → CommonRoad.
  • A GUI for creating and editing CommonRoad maps and scenarios.
  • Verification and repair utilities for CommonRoad maps.
  • A command-line interface for batch conversions.
  • Python API for programmatic integration.
  • Integration with the CommonRoad benchmarks, a motion-planning evaluation suite used in academic research.
  • Available on PyPI.
  • Developed at TUM’s Cyber-Physical Systems group, documented in peer-reviewed publications.

If your work is in or near the CommonRoad ecosystem, or you need cross-format map conversion, this is the toolbox aimed at that.

drawtonomy is a browser whiteboard for 2D driving diagrams. It targets the OpenSCENARIO / esmini side and does not speak CommonRoad XML. Its map import / export is narrower than CommonRoad SD’s multi-format toolbox.

A few small things drawtonomy can add alongside CommonRoad SD:

  • A no-install browser sketch surface for paper figures.
  • .drawtonomy.svg as an editable figure source for documentation alongside CommonRoad-based research.
  • OpenSCENARIO 1.3 + OpenDRIVE 1.8 export for esmini playback as a sanity check.

The two tools serve different ecosystems. If your downstream is CommonRoad, use CommonRoad SD.

Although CommonRoad SD primarily targets the CommonRoad XML format, it also lives in the broader Lanelet2 / OpenDRIVE / OpenStreetMap / SUMO ecosystem through its converters. drawtonomy touches the same set of formats (Lanelet2, OpenDRIVE, OpenSCENARIO) from a different angle. Both tools — alongside JOSM, Vector Map Builder, SUMO, Scenic, and others — contribute to the open ecosystem around driving-scenario formats.