Spacenav Nodes

spacenav_node

Published topics

• spacenav/offset (geometry_msgs/Vector3)

  Publishes the linear component of the joystick’s position. Approximately normalized to a range of -1 to 1.

• spacenav/rot_offset(geometry_msgs/Vector3)

  Publishes the angular component of the joystick’s position. Approximately normalized to a range of -1 to 1.

• spacenav/twist (geometry_msgs/Twist)

  Combines offset and rot_offset into a single message.

• spacenav/joy (sensor_msgs/Joy)

  Outputs the spacenav’s six degrees of freedom and its buttons as a joystick message.

  Parameters

• zero_when_static

  sets values to zero when the spacenav is not moving

• static_count_threshold

  The number of polls needed to be done before the device is considered “static”

• static_trans_deadband

  sets the translational deadband

• static_rot_deadband

  sets the rotational deadband

• linear_scale

  sets the scale of the linear output

  takes a vector (x, y, z)

• angular_scale

  sets the scale of the angular output

  takes a vector (x, y, z)

The linear_scale and angular_scale parameters take vector arguements. The easiest way to set these parameters is with a launch file like so:

<launch>
  <node pkg="spacenav_node" type="spacenav_node" name="$(anon spacenav_node)" output="screen">
    <rosparam param="linear_scale">[.25, .25, .25]</rosparam>
    <rosparam param="angular_scale">[.5, .5, .5]</rosparam>
  </node>
</launch>

Running the spacenav_node

Running the node is straightforward

$rosrun spacenav_node spacenav_node

The node is now publishing to the topics listed above.

Examples

Viewing the output from the spacenav can be done as follows:

$ rostopic echo /spacenav/joy

Changelog for package spacenav_node

1.15.1 (2021-06-07)

1.15.0 (2020-10-12)

• Remove spacenavd from the requirements for Noetic (#186)
• Contributors: Tyler Weaver

1.14.0 (2020-07-07)

• roslint and Generic Clean-Up (#161)
• Contributors: Joshua Whitley

1.13.0 (2019-06-24)

1.12.0 (2018-06-11)

• Adding tested spacenav scaling
• Added README
• Addressed numerous outstanding PRs.
• Changed package xml to format 2
• Reduce the number of scale params in spacenav_node
• Add a scale parameter to each axis in spacenav_node Do not apply the scale to the joy topic.
• Contributors: Gaël Ecorchard, Jonathan Bohren, jprod123

1.11.0 (2017-02-10)

• Update dependencies to remove warnings
• Contributors: Mark D Horn

1.10.1 (2015-05-24)

• Add full_scale parameter and apply to offset
• Remove stray architechture_independent flags
• Contributors: Gaël Ecorchard, Jonathan Bohren, Scott K Logan

1.10.0 (2014-06-26)

• First indigo release