rerun — What is it?

Rerun is an open-source SDK designed for logging, storing, querying, and visualizing multimodal and multi-rate data, serving as a data layer for physical AI applications.

⭐ 10,483 Stars 🍴 705 Forks Rust Apache-2.0 Author: rerun-io
Source: README View on GitHub →

Why it matters

Rerun is gaining attention due to its ability to handle complex multimodal data, providing a comprehensive solution for logging, querying, and visualizing data from various sources like robot logs, simulations, and computer vision pipelines. Its unique technical choice of using columnar storage for multi-rate physical data stands out, offering efficient data management and processing.

Source: Synthesis of README and project traits

Core Features

Multimodal Data Ingestion

Rerun can ingest a wide range of data types including images, point clouds, transforms, time series, joint states, and video from various sources and formats, making it versatile for different types of physical AI applications.

Source: README
Real-time Visualization

The built-in viewer allows for real-time visualization of data, enabling users to scrub episodes, compare sensors side-by-side, and watch CV pipelines run live, enhancing debugging and analysis capabilities.

Source: README
Data Querying and Streaming

Data is queryable using dataframes or SQL, and can be streamed directly into training, eliminating the need for export jobs and ensuring data freshness.

Source: README

Architecture

The architecture of Rerun is modular, with separate crates for building, storing, and viewing data. It uses a columnar storage system optimized for multi-rate physical data, and provides SDKs in Python, Rust, and C++ for different application needs. The project utilizes Cargo for dependency management and Rust's edition 2024 for modern language features.

Source: Code tree + dependency files

Project Knowledge Graph

Knowledge graph: project (center) + core features (inner hexagons) + key dependencies (outer chips) rerun_py rerun-cli rerun_c Multimodal Data IngestionMultimodal Data Ing… Real-time VisualizationReal-time Visualiza… Data Querying and StreamingData Querying and S… rerun Project Core feature Key dependency

Center: project; inner ring: core feature modules; outer ring: key dependencies. Auto-generated from core_features and tech_stack.key_deps.

Tech Stack

LanguageRustFrameworkCargo for dependency management, Rust edition 2024
rerun_pyrerun-clirerun_c
Not specified, but likely supports various deployment options due to its SDK nature
Source: Dependency files + code tree

Quick Start

pip install rerun-sdk rr.init("rerun_example_app") rr.spawn()
Source: README Installation/Quick Start

Use Cases

Rerun is suitable for robotics, simulation, computer vision, and any application involving sensors or signals that evolve over time. It is useful for debugging robots, managing and querying training data, visually debugging live streams or recordings, and creating datasets for training and evaluation.

Source: README

Strengths & Limitations

Strengths

  • Strength 1: Comprehensive support for multimodal and multi-rate data
  • Strength 2: Real-time visualization and efficient data management
  • Strength 3: Cross-platform SDKs for Python, Rust, and C++

Limitations

  • Limitation 1: Active development with evolving API, potentially causing breaking changes
  • Limitation 2: Some performance issues reported with high entity counts and large point clouds
Source: Synthesis of README, code structure and dependencies

Latest Release

0.32.0 (2026-05-13): Chunk Processing, Pytorch dataloader, Dataset Review

Source: GitHub Releases

Verdict

Rerun is a promising project for teams and individuals working on physical AI applications that require robust data logging, querying, and visualization capabilities. Its focus on multimodal data and efficient data management makes it a valuable tool for complex AI systems.

Transparency Notice
This page is auto-generated by AI (a large language model) from the following public materials: GitHub README, code tree, dependency files and release notes. Analyzed at: 2026-05-24 15:44. Quality score: 85/100.

Data sources: README, GitHub API, dependency files