Rviz Visual Tools

C++ API wrapper for displaying shapes and meshes in Rviz via helper functions that publish markers. Useful for displaying and debugging data. For more advanced robot visualization features, see the moveit_visual_tools which builds on this class.

This package includes:

• Rviz Panel GUI to step through your code for debugging and testing
• Rviz-based keyboard control for stepping through application
• Easy to use helper functions for visualizing in Rviz fast
• Basic geometric markers for Rviz
• More complex geometric shapes such as coordinate frames, framed boxes, planes, paths, graphs
• Ability to quickly choose standard colors and sizes
• Tools to ensure proper connection to Rviz before publishing visualizations
• Shortcuts to convert between different types of points and poses - ROS msgs, Eigen, tf, etc
• Batch publishing capabilities to reduce over throttling ROS messages
• A tf publishing helper class
• An interactive marker helper class

Developed by Dave Coleman at the Correll Robotics Lab, University of Colorado Boulder with help from Andy McEvoy and many others.

• Travis CI
• ROS Buildfarm - AMD64 Xenial Debian Build
• ROS Buildfarm - AMD64 Xenial Devel Build

Install

Ubuntu Debian

sudo apt-get install ros-kinetic-rviz-visual-tools

Build from Source

Clone this repository into a catkin workspace, then use the rosdep install tool to automatically download its dependencies. Depending on your current version of ROS, use:

rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src --rosdistro kinetic

Quick Start Demo

To see random shapes generated in Rviz, first launch Rviz:

roslaunch rviz_visual_tools demo_rviz.launch

Then start demo:

roslaunch rviz_visual_tools demo.launch

Code API

See the Doxygen documentation

Usage

We’ll assume you will be using these helper functions within a class. Almost all of the functions assume you are publishing transforms in the world frame (whatever you call that e.g. /odom).

Initialize

Add to your includes:

#include <rviz_visual_tools/rviz_visual_tools.h>

Add to your class’s member variables:

// For visualizing things in rviz
rviz_visual_tools::RvizVisualToolsPtr visual_tools_;

In your class’ constructor add:

visual_tools_.reset(new rviz_visual_tools::RvizVisualTools("base_frame","/rviz_visual_markers"));

Change the first parameter to the name of your robot’s base frame, and the second parameter to whatever name you’d like to use for the corresponding Rviz marker ROS topic.

Tools

Now in your code you can easily debug your code using visual markers in Rviz

Start rviz and create a new marker using the ‘Add’ button at the bottom right. Choose the marker topic to be the same as the topic you specified in the constructor.

Example Code

In the following snippet we create a pose at xyz (0.1, 0.1, 0.1) and rotate the pose down 45 degrees along the Y axis. Then we publish the pose as a arrow for visualziation in Rviz. Make sure your Rviz fixed frame is the same as the one chosen in the code.

// Create pose
Eigen::Affine3d pose;
pose = Eigen::AngleAxisd(M_PI/4, Eigen::Vector3d::UnitY()); // rotate along X axis by 45 degrees
pose.translation() = Eigen::Vector3d( 0.1, 0.1, 0.1 ); // translate x,y,z

// Publish arrow vector of pose
ROS_INFO_STREAM_NAMED("test","Publishing Arrow");
visual_tools_->publishArrow(pose, rviz_visual_tools::RED, rviz_visual_tools::LARGE);

// Don't forget to trigger the publisher!
visual_tools_->trigger();

Rviz GUI Usage

Publishes on the topic of /rviz_visual_tools_gui

The buttons in the Joy message correspond to the following:

1 - Next
2 - Continue
3 - Break
4 - Stop

Note: only Next is fully implemented

Mouse-Based Control

Use the Rviz panel called “RvizVisualToolsGui” to step through your program.

Keyboard-Based Control

Switch to the “KeyTool” in the top of the Rviz window and use the following keyboard commands:

• n: next
• c or a: continue
• b: break
• s: stop

API

Basic Publishing Functions

See rviz_visual_tools.h for more details and documentation on the following functions:

• publishSphere
• publishSpheres
• publishArrow/publishXArrow
• publishYArrow
• publishZArrow
• publishCuboid
• publishCone
• publishXYPlane
• publishXZPlane
• publishYZPlane
• publishLine
• publishPath
• publishPolygon
• publishBlock
• publishWireframeCuboid
• publishWireframeRectangle
• publishAxis
• publishAxisLabeled
• publishCylinder
• publishMesh
• publishMesh
• publishText
• publishTest

And more…

Helper Functions

Reset function

• deleteAllMarkers() - tells Rviz to clear out all current markers from being displayed.

All markers must be triggered after being published, by calling the trigger() function. This allows batch publishing to be achieved by only calling after several markers have been created, greatly increasing the speed of your application. You can even explicitly tell rviz_visual_tools how often to publish via the triggerEvery(NUM_MARKERS) command:

• trigger()
• triggerEvery(20)

Conversion functions

• convertPose
• convertPoint32ToPose
• convertPoseToPoint
• convertPoint
• convertPoint32
• convertFromXYZRPY
• convertToXYZRPY

Convenience functions

• generateRandomPose
• generateEmptyPose
• dRand
• fRand
• iRand
• getCenterPoint
• getVectorBetweenPoints

Frame locking

This allows the markers to be automatically updated as the base frame moves without having to republish. You can enable it via enableFrameLocking() (this is not enabled by default).

Available Colors

This package helps you quickly choose colors - feel free to send PRs with more colors as needed

BLACK,
BLUE,
BROWN,
CYAN,
DARK_GREY,
GREEN,
GREY,
LIME_GREEN,
MAGENTA,
ORANGE,
PINK,
PURPLE,
RED,
WHITE,
YELLOW,
TRANSLUCENT_LIGHT,
TRANSLUCENT,
TRANSLUCENT_DARK,
RAND,
CLEAR,
DEFAULT // i.e. 'do not change default color'

Available Marker Sizes

XXXXSMALL,
XXXSMALL,
XXSMALL,
XSMALL,
SMALL,
MEDIUM,
LARGE,
XLARGE,
XXLARGE,
XXXLARGE,
XXXXLARGE,

Interactive Marker Helper Class

This class quickly gives you basic 6dof pose interactive marker funcitonality. A demo is available:

roslaunch rviz_visual_tools demo_rviz.launch
rosrun rviz_visual_tools imarker_simple_demo

TF Visual Tools

This tool lets you easily debug Eigen transforms in Rviz. Demo use:

rviz_visual_tools::TFVisualTools tf_visualizer;
Eigen::Affine3d world_to_shelf_transform = Eigen::Affine3d::Identity(); // or whatever value
tf_visualizer.publishTransform(world_to_shelf_transform, "world", "shelf");

Note: this is a work in progress

Testing and Linting

To run roslint, use the following command with catkin-tools:

catkin build --no-status --no-deps --this --make-args roslint

To run catkin lint, use the following command with catkin-tools:

catkin lint -W2

Use the following command with catkin-tools to run the small amount of available tests:

catkin run_tests --no-deps --this -i

Run with clang-tidy:

run-clang-tidy-4.0.py -clang-tidy-binary=/usr/lib/llvm-4.0/bin/clang-tidy -fix -p=/home/dave/ros/current/ws_moveit/build/rviz_visual_tools .

Docker Image

Dockerhub automatically creates a Docker for this repo. To run with GUI:

# This is not the safest way however, as you then compromise the access control to X server on your host
xhost +local:root # for the lazy and reckless
docker run -it --env="DISPLAY" --env="QT_X11_NO_MITSHM=1" --volume="/tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix:rw" davetcoleman/rviz_visual_tools:kinetic
export containerId=$(docker ps -l -q)
# Close security hole:
xhost -local:root

(Optional) To build the docker image locally for this repo, run in base of package:

docker build -t davetcoleman/rviz_visual_tools:kinetic .

Contribute

Please send PRs for new helper functions, fixes, etc!

Changelog for package rviz_visual_tools

3.6.0 (2018-01-15)

• Addresses Issue #49 - Default Constructor Not Nodelet Friendly
• Added option to pass in a node handle in the constructor that defaults to
• Reset marker should publish initialized quaternion
• Improve code quality - add const, static, C++11 features, clang-format
• Create demo executable for IMarkerSimple
• Improve memory efficiency of functions
• Contributors: Dave Coleman, Geoffrey Chiou, Victor Lamoine

3.5.1 (2017-12-25)

• Normalize quaternion before storage
• Fix for ambiguous function call to publishAxis
• Add linking to visualization tools library for imarker_simple
• Added arrow pub to take two points
• Document clang-tidy
• catkin lint
• roslint applied
• Clang-format again
• Clang-tidy ALL
• C++11 optimizations
• Fix deprecated calls to convertFromXYZRPY
• Add new convertPoseSafe() function
• New convertFromXYZRPY() function to avoid deprecation warning
• Allow to enable frame locking in the markers/markers arrays
• Update license year
• IMarkerSimple: set name and pose
• New printTransformFull() function
• Removed deprecated warning
• New class for easily using 6dof imarkers
• More options to tf_visual_tools
• Update README.md
• Contributors: Andy McEvoy, Dave Coleman, Fadri Furrer, Victor Lamoine

3.4.1 (2017-06-20)

• Add dependency on QT5 for Ubuntu Zesty/Lunar support
• Allow publishPath with std_msgs::ColorRGBA
• Make INFO msg DEBUG
• Contributors: Dave Coleman, Victor Lamoine

3.4.0 (2016-11-02)

• Consolidated publishing into RemoteReciever class
• Improve console output
• Add RvizGui and KeyTool
• Enable remote control from withing rviz_visual_tools
• New publishPath() function
• Shorten number of lines printTranslation() requires
• Contributors: Dave Coleman

3.3.0 (2016-09-28)

• BREAKING CHANGE: Make batch publishing enabled by default
• Removed enableInternalBatchPublishing()
• Removed triggerInternalBatchPublishAndDisable()
• Deprecated triggerBatchPublish() in favor of function name trigger()
• Deprecated triggerBatchPublishAndDisable()
• Ability to trigger every x markers that are in queue, ideal in for loops
• New waitForMarkerPub() function that takes timeout
• Add std::move
• Added Docker for Kinetic
• Added delay to demo to allow rviz to load in Docker
• Change the sphere marker type from SPHERE_LIST to SPHERE - This makes irregularly scaled spheres (i.e. ellipsoids) to be rendered correctly.
• Contributors: Dave Coleman, Miguel Prada

3.2.0 (2016-07-14)

• Catkin depend on eigen and tf conversions
• New warning
• Added EulerConvention enum
• Added new convertFromXYZRPY() function
• Added new tests
• Contributors: Dave Coleman, Enrique Fernandez

3.1.0 (2016-07-06)

• Switched publishPath() to use cylinders
• Added new publishLineStrip() function
• Added new publishPath() functions
• Added new publishAxis() functions
• Update screenshot
• Broke publishPath() API for recent addition - incorrect Eigen vector used
• New publishPath() function for Affine3d
• New publishAxis() functions that use scale
• New publishAxisInternal() function for more efficient publishing
• New publishAxisPath() function for showing a series of coordinate axis
• Added warning for batch publishing when not enabled
• Bug fix in publishLines() for id incrementing
• New scaleToString() function
• Bug fix for scaling in coordinate axis
• Improved demo to have multiple scales visualized
• Revert "Remove graph msgs"
• Contributors: Dave Coleman

3.0.0 (2016-06-29)

• Improve Travis script
• Upgrade to Eigen3 per ROS Kinetic requirements
• New screenshot
• Refactored entire scaling method - all sizes of shapes have been affected
• Renamed scales
• Removed const reference for primitive types in function headers
• Cleaned up getScale() function
• New publishSpheres function
• Two new tests & screenshot
• Deprecated size REGULAR
• Number scale sizes
• New intToRvizScale() function
• New publishSpheres() functions for showing list of lines AND colors
• New publishLines() functions for using LINE_LIST
• New publishCylinder() function that uses scales
• Bug fix for getVectorBetweenPoints() when vector is all zeros
• New printTranslation() function
• added intToRvizColor() for interfaces that do not directly depend on Rviz Visual Tools, such as OMPL
• publishPath with vector of colors
• Update demo
• New variant of publishPath with vector of colors
• New publishSphere() helper
• Add eigen_stl_containers
• Add missing breaks in switch statement
• Add namespace to ease debugging ROS messages
• Do not pass Eigen structures by value
• Fix all vector<Eigen> to EigenSTL::vector_Vector3d as recommended by \@VictorLamoine
• Hide upstream package cast warning
• Overload new operator for Eigen structures
• Changing the angles will change the opening angle of the cone
• Better way to turn on C++11, maybe?
• Removed deprecated code for Kinetic
• Began converting to C++11
• Fix dead link to the documentation
• New waitForMarkerPub() function
• Fix bug in waitForSubscriber() introduced in previous commit
• Added blocking constraint option in function waitForSubscriber
• New publishLine() variant
• ID for publishing rectangles
• Optimize clearing and resizing vectors
• Increase random color sampling attempts
• Move variable declaration
• Latched publisher
• publishAxisLabeled arguments
• Include path, boost typedef and class name are now up to date with the code.
• New publishLine() variant
• Optional latched publisher
• ID for publishing rectangles
• Optimize clearing and resizing vectors
• Increase random color sampling attempts
• Move variable declaration
• publishAxisLabeled arguments order
• Adds Publish Labeled Axis
• Contributors: Abhijit Makhal, Dave Coleman, Naveed Usmani, Sow Papa Libasse, Victor Lamoine

2.2.0 (2016-04-28)

• Created much better demo, added new screenshot
• Numbered colors so that they can be matched in OMPL
• New publishLine() function variants
• Psychedelic mode
• Prevent publishing empty marker arrays
• Improved warning and error correction
• New publishSphere function
• Ability to set marker topic after constructor
• Ability to force waiting for topic to connect
• Added new posesEqual() function
• Updated publishArrow() function
• New publishPath function
• New publishLine function
• New publishCylinder that accepts two points
• New publishText function
• Removed redundant namespace names
• New convertPointToPose function
• Reduced output
• Renamed line_marker_ to line_strip_marker_
• Faster method for waiting for subscriber thread
• Untested publishPath() modification
• Fix to correctly use optional alpha color property
• Change getColorScale to work from 0->1 instead of 0->100
• Additional parameters to publishCuboid()
• New color scale function for generated interpolated colors from RED->GREEN (1->100)
• Contributors: Dave Coleman

2.1.0 (2016-02-09)

• Allow publishArrow functions to specify ID
• Contributors: Dave Coleman

2.0.3 (2016-01-10)

• Renamed test to demo
• Fix bug in random number generator
• Noted a TODO
• Documentation
• Contributors: Dave Coleman

2.0.2 (2015-12-27)

• Formatting
• Removed unused var
• roslint fixes
• Contributors: Dave Coleman

2.0.1 (2015-12-05)

• catkin lint cleanup
• Updated travis badge
• Updated README
• Contributors: Dave Coleman

2.0.0 (2015-12-02)

• Updated README
• Add badges
• Default true for enableBatchPublishing()
• Renamed convertXYZRPY() to convertFromXYZRPY()
• Changed roll pitch yall convention (fix)
• Added preliminary unit tests
• Hide include dependencies
• New convertToXYZRPY function
• Decrease wait time for topics to subscribe
• New publishSphere and publishArrow functions
• Added new thread safe pose conversion function
• Auto format with clang
• New publishSphere with frame_id function
• New print transform functions
• Fixed RPY error
• New convert Affine3d to roll pitch yaw function
• New tf_visual_tools functionality to help debug transforms
• New parameter server isEnabled feature
• Add id for wireframe cuboids
• Namespaced publishWireframeCuboid
• Helper function for publishAxisLabeled
• New getBoolMap() function
• New convertXYZRPY() function
• Fix warnings
• Fixed yellow
• Fix internal publish bug
• Check for empty parameter
• New delayed publishing internal mode
• added publishCuboid function for Eigen::Affine3d
• New string vector param reading
• added publishCuboid function for Eigen::Affine3d
• Show whole param path
• Added publish plane and cone
• Renamed to publishAxisLabled()
• New publishWireframeRectangle function
• Fixed publishZArrow direction
• New publishAxisWithLabel() function
• Removed mute functionality
• New publishWireframeRectangle() function
• Improved memory reuse by utilizing member variables for conversion functions
• Fixed ordering of functions in file
• Added alpha values to fix planning scene visualization
• Add WireframCuboid function to show oriented bounding boxes as computed ...
• Made more function parameters passed by reference
• Add color to wireframe
• Add WireframCuboid function to show oriented bounding boxes as computed from PCL.
• New generateRandomCuboid() function
• Fixed formatting, added a PoseStamped version to publish[XZ]Arrow() functions
• publishMesh() now has optional ID specification
• Fixed generateRandomPose() bug
• Added Eigen version of generateRandomPose()
• changed floats to double in random pose struct, added publish block function to take pose
• Updated rviz_visual_tools API
• Deprecated publishRectangle() in favor of publishCuboid()
• Added cyan and magenta
• Added maintainer
• Removed random pose bounds member variable in favor of using a funciton parameter
• Added publish arrow functions
• Added dark grey color
• New publishLine function takes two Vector3's
• added functionality to change bounds of random pose
• New publishArrow function that allows stamped pose for arbitrary parent frames
• added ArrayXXf to hold bounds on random pose
• new publishLine function takes two Vector3's
• Made yellow brighter
• added marker array to rviz and modified generate random pose to give actual random pose
• New publishArrow() functions
• New batch publishing method - allows markers to be published in batches to reduce ROS messages being published
• added method for displaying cuboids
• added a clear overlay
• New publishMesh function
• Added Brown, Pink, and Lime Green colors
• Copyright year
• Contributors: Dave Coleman, Andy McEvoy, Jorge Canardo Alastuey

1.5.0 (2015-01-07)

• New publishLine function
• New publishText() function with Eigen pose
• New publishAxis() feature
• New publishRectangle() functions
• New publishCylinder() functions
• New convertPoint() functions
• API: Renamed publishTest() to publishTests()
• Fix CMakeLists
• API Break: Change TRANSLUCENT2 to TRANSLUCENT_LIGHT
• New convertPoint() function
• New DEFAULT color to allow color selection to be disabled
• Fix install space
• Fix for publishRectangle() - zero scale size
• Added new size const values
• Contributors: Dave Coleman

1.4.0 (2014-10-31)

• Renamed VisualTools to RvizVisualTools
• Removed unnecessary dependency
• Bugfix
• Reduced debug output
• New waitForSubscriber() function that checks for first subscriber to a publisher
• New generateEmptyPose() function helper
• Consolidated publishing rviz messages to central publishMarker() function
• Contributors: Dave Coleman

1.3.1 (2014-10-27)

• Added new publishSpheres function
• Renamed rviz_colors to colors and rviz_scales to scales
• Initial commit, forked from moveit_visual_tools
• Contributors: Dave Coleman