Increase simulator performance using multiple mesh fidelities for different sensor modalities

An apparatus comprising:

• a driving scenario simulator to render a driving scene, wherein the rendering comprises placing an object in the driving scene, the object being based on high-fidelity mesh data;
• a sensor simulator to generate synthetic light detection and ranging (LIDAR) data based on low-fidelity mesh data representing the object;
• and
• a vehicle simulator to simulate at least one of an operation or a behavior of a vehicle based on the driving scene and the LIDAR data.

A method comprising:

• obtaining, by a computer-implemented system, first mesh data representing an object in a synthetic driving scene;
• obtaining, by the computer-implemented system, second mesh data representing the object, wherein the second mesh data has a lower fidelity in representing the object than the first mesh data;
• generating, by the computer-implemented system, using a camera sensor simulation model, an image of the synthetic driving scene based at least in part on the first mesh data;
• and
• generating, by the computer-implemented system, using a light detection and ranging (LIDAR) sensor simulation model, a LIDAR point cloud based on the second mesh data;
• and
• generating, by the computer-implemented system, a simulation of at least one of an operation or a behavior of a vehicle in the synthetic driving scene based on the image and the LIDAR point cloud.