I can't speak for whether Google or Uber are using rviz in any way, although I suspect Uber is not because they have their own tool for visualisation of data.
I don't think they look that similar. But there obviously similarities in how the information is displayed. This is because they are showing much of the same information. Some examples:
- You want to show the positions of detected vehicles and be able to instantly understand their orientation and maximum extents. A bounding box is ideal for this because it is simple to understand. Adding an arrow makes it clear which way is the front.
- Similarly other dynamic obstacles, such as bikes and people, are also usually shown as bounding boxes. Often a different colour is used based on the object classification.
- The path the car plans to follow, and possibly has followed, is usually represented as a line, just like you see for any mobile robot.
- The available space for navigating is a corridor that varies in width based on things like lane width and what is at the side or encroaching on the lane. Hence it is often displayed as a stripe. Although I've seen one, I think it was Cruise, that showed it as a series of lines perpendicular to the path. I actually found that easier to visualise the changing usable width than a stripe.
- Point cloud data from a sensor like a Velodyne has a distinctive look, because the scans come in as rings and these rings appear to get further apart as the distance from the car grows. The colouring is also often the same, with more urgent colours used for points closer to the car to make it clear where things are relative to the car.
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