Turing Sim: Seeing Sensors in the Viewport and the Robot Panel

Sensors now show where they are in the viewport, and the Robot panel shows what they measure.

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Before

After

After: camera frustums, the LiDAR head and the IMU axes are drawn where the sensors are.

Before

After

After: live sensor rows, LiDAR colouring with a legend, IMU charts and the camera preview.

The scan with a distance ramp and its range in the legend.

Situation

With IMUs, LiDARs and cameras simulated, the editor had to show them. The first version listed sensors as plain text and drew LiDAR points in eight shades of one colour. You could not see where a camera pointed until you pressed Play. During the session the user asked for better visualization.

Task

Show each sensor where it is, whether it is live, and what it measures, in every viewport mode and in a panel that fits a narrow inspector.

Action

1. Sensors in the viewport. Camera frustums with a tab marking image up, LiDAR heads with their field of view, and IMU axes in the viewport's X, Y, Z colours. While simulating, each IMU also draws its measured specific force. These gizmos show while editing too, which makes placing a sensor easy.
2. A panel that reads at a glance. One row per sensor with its kind, mount and status (Ready, Live, Note). LiDAR scans can be coloured by intensity, distance, height or class with a Turbo legend. IMUs get four seconds of acceleration and angular velocity per axis. Cameras get a live preview of any output.
3. One recording. Record sensors writes the host's IMU and LiDAR data and the camera worker's frames into one folder.
4. Fixes found by capturing the real app. The native captures for this post showed three layout problems, each fixed with a regression test. The preset picker had widened the Robot panel from 322 to 402 pt and scrolled it sideways. Stale rows painted "Ready" under "Live". Six camera outputs were elided in a segmented control and now use a full-width picker.

Result

The before/after captures run the same scene. Before, the viewport shows nothing where the sensors are and the panel has no sensor section. After, frustums, the LiDAR head and the IMU axes appear while editing. While playing, the panel shows live rows, the coloured scan with its legend, the IMU charts and the camera. The panel is back to its pre-sensor width.