Selective compression of image data during teleoperation of a vehicle

A vehicle system for compressing image data for display to a remote operator of a vehicle, comprising:

• one or more sensors, the one or more sensors including one or more cameras configured to capture images of a surrounding environment around the vehicle;
• and
• one or more processors configured to:
• receive information from a remote computer system, the information indicating a direction or area of focus of the remote operator;
• generate a visual representation of the surrounding environment based on at least one image captured by the one or more cameras;
• identify a first region in the visual representation as being a region of interest based on the information from the remote computer system;
• compress the visual representation, wherein the first region is compressed to a lesser extent than a second region located outside the first region in the visual representation;
• and
• transmit the compressed visual representation to the remote computer system, wherein the compressed visual representation is decompressed for display on one or more display devices viewed by the remote operator.

A computer-readable storage medium containing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computer system in a vehicle, cause the one or more processors to:

• receive information from a second computer system remotely located from the vehicle, the information indicating a direction or area of focus of a remote operator;
• generate a visual representation of a surrounding environment around the vehicle based on at least one image captured by one or more cameras on the vehicle;
• identify a first region in the visual representation as being a region of interest based on the information from the second computer system;
• compress the visual representation, wherein the first region is compressed to a lesser extent than a second region located outside the first region in the visual representation;
• transmit the compressed visual representation to the second computer system, wherein the compressed visual representation is decompressed for display on one or more display devices viewed by the remote operator;
• receive a driving instruction from the second computer system, the driving instruction being based on input supplied by the remote operator in response to viewing the decompressed visual representation;
• and
• maneuver the vehicle according to the driving instruction.