OpenDRIVE vector driver for GDAL

The driver is scheduled to become part of GDAL release 3.10.

Getting hands on

Pull one of the two Docker images which have the driver already included:

• either Ubuntu-based

   docker pull ghcr.io/osgeo/gdal:ubuntu-full-latest

• or Alpine-based

  docker pull ghcr.io/osgeo/gdal:alpine-normal-latest

For example, spawning the Alpine container, verify availability of the driver by calling ogrinfo --format XODR:

docker run --rm -it ghcr.io/osgeo/gdal:alpine-normal-latest ogrinfo --format XODR

Format Details:
  Short Name: XODR
  Long Name: OpenDRIVE - Open Dynamic Road Information for Vehicle Environment
  Supports: Vector
  Supports: Open() - Open existing dataset.
<OpenOptionList>
  ...
</OpenOptionList>

You can now use the new driver functions through the Docker container. For example, use ogr2ogr to convert a local .xodr file into GeoPackage, or into any other supported OGR output format:

docker run --rm -v ${PWD}:/home -it ghcr.io/osgeo/gdal:alpine-normal-latest ogr2ogr -f "GPKG" /home/<file>.gpkg /home/<file>.xodr

QGIS Demo

Our goal is to make these functions conveniently usable through the official GDAL distribution in future, thus, also enabling drag-and-drop of XODR into QGIS. The following video shows the current workaround through a previously created GeoPackage.

Context references

• Scholz, Michael and Böttcher, Oliver and Bardak, Gülşen (2024): Improving interoperability between OpenDRIVE HD map data and GIS using GDAL. FOSS4G Europe 2024, Tartu, Estonia.
• Scholz, Michael and Böttcher, Oliver and Bardak, Gülşen (2024): Making OpenDRIVE HD map data easily accessible in GIS. Geospatial World Forum 2024, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
• Scholz, Michael and Böttcher, Oliver and Bardak, Gülşen (2024): Making domain-specific automotive engineering road space data in OpenDRIVE available for GIS. International Conference on Geoinformation Data, Processing and Applications (GeoDPA), Oldenburg, Germany.
• Scholz, Michael und Böttcher, Oliver und Bardak, Gülşen (2024): OpenDRIVE-HD-Karten mittels GDAL ins GIS bringen. FOSSGIS 2024, Hamburg, Germany.
• Scholz, Michael and Bardak, Gülşen (2023): Providing a libOpenDRIVE-based GDAL driver for conversion of lane-detailed road network datasets commonly used in automotive engineering into GIS tools. FOSS4G 2023, Prizren, Kosovo.
• Scholz, Michael and Orozco Idrobo, Ana Maria (2017): Supporting the Implementation of Driving Simulator Environments Through Established GIS Approaches by Extending the Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL) with OpenDRIVE. In: Proceedings of the Driving Simulator Conference 2017 Europe VR, p. 51-54. Stuttgart, Germany.
• Orozco Idrobo, Ana Maria (2015): Extension of the Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL/OGR) for OpenDRIVE Support in GIS Applications for Visualisation and Data Accumulation for Driving Simulators. Master's Thesis, Technische Universität München, Germany.