Abstract: In one embodiment, use of virtual thermal cameras in simulations systems can rapidly increase the deployment of vehicles with autonomous driving systems that include thermal cameras as a part of the sensor systems that detect people, other cars, etc. This use can be achieved by calibrating virtual thermal cameras using a virtual object or scenes with predetermined temperatures of objects (humans) in the scenes. The virtually calibrated thermal camera can then be used in virtual simulations of driving scenarios to generate learning data, such as virtual thermal images, to test autonomous driving systems and autonomous driving algorithms. The calibration can use a temperature conversion process, and the generation of the learning data can also use this temperature conversion process that includes the addition of noise, represented by temperature values.