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drawtonomy and CARLA ScenarioRunner

Not a comparison — different layers

Section titled “Not a comparison — different layers”

drawtonomy and CARLA ScenarioRunner are not competing tools. They sit at different layers in the same ecosystem:

  • drawtonomy — a 2D browser whiteboard for authoring scenes. Outputs OpenSCENARIO 1.3 + OpenDRIVE 1.8.
  • CARLA ScenarioRunner — a Python-based scenario definition and execution engine for the CARLA simulator. Consumes OpenSCENARIO 1.0 / 2.0 (and scenarios defined in its Python interface).

The relationship is “drawtonomy produces, ScenarioRunner consumes” — when the formats line up.

What CARLA ScenarioRunner covers

Section titled “What CARLA ScenarioRunner covers”

Per the official docs:

  • Scenario definition through a Python interface, or through the OpenSCENARIO standard.
  • Support for OpenSCENARIO 1.0 — covers initial support for maneuver Actions, Conditions, Stories, and the Storyboard.
  • Support for the OpenSCENARIO 2.0 standard.
  • Python-based, no build step required.
  • Open-source under the same license as CARLA.

ScenarioRunner is the standard way to define and execute scenarios inside CARLA.

How drawtonomy fits

Section titled “How drawtonomy fits”

drawtonomy’s exporter emits a subset of OpenSCENARIO 1.3. ScenarioRunner targets OpenSCENARIO 1.0 primarily, so there may be spec-version mismatches at the edges. drawtonomy’s primary playback target is esmini, which handles 1.x more uniformly.

If you want to use drawtonomy output with CARLA:

  • The .xosc may need hand-editing to align with what ScenarioRunner accepts.
  • The .xodr is OpenDRIVE 1.8 — CARLA accepts a range of OpenDRIVE versions.
  • For complex scenarios (triggers, ML controllers, parameter sweeps), define them directly in ScenarioRunner’s Python interface; drawtonomy doesn’t express those.

A reasonable pattern: use drawtonomy to sketch the scene visually, then transcribe / hand-edit the scenario logic in ScenarioRunner.

Part of the same ecosystem

Section titled “Part of the same ecosystem”

CARLA, ScenarioRunner, drawtonomy, esmini, Scenic, scenariogeneration, RoadRunner, and Blender DSC are all part of the same OpenSCENARIO ecosystem, working on different layers (authoring, generation, execution, playback). drawtonomy is one of the smaller contributors to that community — its role is the visual sketching surface on the authoring side.

See also

Section titled “See also”