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ROS 2 Description package for ZED Cameras

The zed-ros2-description repository installs the zed_description ROS 2 package which defines the ZED Camera models to be used with the ZED ROS2 Wrapper and ZED ROS2 Examples.

Note: This package does not require CUDA and can be used to receive ZED data on ROS 2 machines without an NVIDIA GPU.

Install the package from the binaries for ROS 2 Humble

The package zed_description is available in binary format in the official Humble repository.

sudo apt install ros-humble-zed-description

Install the package from the source code

You can install the zed_description package from the source code to obtain the latest updates or for distributions other than Humble (e.g. ROS 2 Foxy).

Build the repository

Dependencies

The zed_description is a colcon package. It depends on the following ROS 2 packages:

• ament_cmake_auto
• builtin_interfaces
• xacro
• rosidl_default_generators
• rosidl_default_runtime
• ament_lint_auto
• ament_cmake_copyright
• ament_cmake_cppcheck
• ament_cmake_lint_cmake
• ament_cmake_pep257
• ament_cmake_uncrustify
• ament_cmake_xmllint

Clone and build

Open a terminal, clone the repository, update the dependencies, and build the packages:

cd ~/catkin_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/stereolabs/zed-ros2-description.git
cd ../
sudo apt update
rosdep update
rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -r -y
colcon build --symlink-install --cmake-args=-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
echo source $(pwd)/install/local_setup.bash >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

:pushpin: Note: If the command rosdep is missing, you can install it using the following method:

sudo apt-get install python-rosdep python-rosinstall-generator python-vcstool python-rosinstall build-essential

:pushpin: Note: The option --symlink-install is important, it allows using symlinks instead of copying files to the ROS 2 folders during the installation, where possible. Each package in ROS 2 must be installed and all the files used by the > nodes must be copied into the installation folders. Using symlinks allows you to modify them in your workspace, reflecting the modification during the next executions without the needing to issue a new colcon build command. This is true only for > all the files that don’t need to be compiled (Python scripts, configurations, etc.).

:pushpin: Note: If you are using a different console interface like zsh, you have to change the source command as follows: echo source $(pwd)/install/local_setup.zsh >> ~/.zshrc and source ~/.zshrc.

Visualize a camera in Rviz2

You can visualize the 3D model of each camera in Rviz2 (without starting a ZED ROS2 Wrapper node) by using this command:

ros2 launch zed_description zed_viz.launch.py camera_model:=<camera_model>

where camera_model can be one of ‘zed’, ‘zedm’, ‘zed2’, ‘zed2i’, ‘zedx’, ‘zedxm’, ‘zedxhdrmini’, ‘zedxhdr’, ‘zedxhdrmax’,’zedxonegs’,’zedxone4k’,’zedxonehdr’.

:pushpin: Note: This command must be used only to debug the correct URDF behaviors. It does not start a working ZED node.

Changelog for package zed_description

0.1.0 (2026-01-08)

• Initial commit
• Contributors: Walter Lucetti