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Concepts

To understand how RemotiveTopology handles recordings you need to understand the followings concepts:

  • Recording session
  • Recording mapping
  • Recording file
  • Video file

Recording session​

A recording session contains all necessary metadata about a recording including:

  • start and stop time when the recording was made
  • one or more recording files
  • optionally one or more video files
  • recording mapping (see below)

Notice that different recording sessions may use the same recording files, for example as a way to highlight important events during a recording.

Here is an example of what a recording session might look like:

schema: remotive-recording-session:0.1

name: Roundabout left turn
start_time: 1753865338s
end_time: 1753865361s

files:
  - location: ./candata.log
    type: recording
  - location: front.mp4
    type: video
    start_time: 1753865335s

mapping:
  includes:
    - ../equipment.mapping.yaml

Recording mapping​

A recording mapping describes how the recording equipment was configured at the time of recording the data and how this maps to a specific platform.

The reason the mapping is needed is that the recording equipment typically have device names such as can0 or eth1, but the platform channels typically have logical names such as DriverCan or MainEthernet

schema: remotive-recording-mapping:0.1

devices:
  can0: DriverCan
  eth1: MainEthernet

A default mapping is automatically created from a device with the same name as the platform channel, i.e. you don't need to specify a mapping if this is the case:

devices:
  DriverCan: DriverCan
  MainEthernet: MainEthernet

The mapping can either be part of a recording session or included from a separate file. Having a separate file is useful when several recordings are made without changing the recording equipment.

Recording file​

The recording file contains the recorded vehicle data. Currently RemotiveTopology supports these formats:

  • CAN dump
  • CSV long format (3 columns: timestamp, signal name, signal value)

Contact support@remotivelabs.com if you need additional file formats!

Video file​

It's often useful to have one or more videos to more easily understand what's happening during a recording. The video can either be from the vehicle's onboard cameras, but it can also be useful to have a separate camera recording where you are driving or what you are saying inside the vehicle.

RemotiveStudio runs in a browser and for best compatibility use MP4 encoded with H.264 + AAC.

Typically you need to specify the start_time of the video to synchronize the video time and recording time, i.e. it's completely normal that the recording session and video doesn't start at the same time.

files:
  - location: front.mp4
    type: video
    start_time: 1753865335s