MoveIt! Visual Tools

Helper functions for displaying and debugging MoveIt! data in Rviz via published markers, trajectories, and MoveIt! collision objects. It is sometimes hard to understand everything that is going on internally with MoveIt!, but using these quick convenience functions allows one to easily visualize their code.

This package includes:

• Basic geometric markers for Rviz
• MoveIt! collision object tools
• Trajectory visualization tools
• Robot state tools

Developed by Dave Coleman at the Correll Robotics Lab, University of Colorado Boulder with outside contributors.

• Travis CI
• ROS Buildfarm - Trusty Devel Source Build
• ROS Buildfarm - AMD64 Trusty Debian Build

Install

Ubuntu Debian

sudo apt-get install ros-indigo-moveit-visual-tools

Install 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 indigo

Quick Start Demo

To see random shapes generated in Rviz:

roslaunch moveit_visual_tools visual_tools_demo.launch

You should see something like:

You can also demo the collision objects generation TODO: THIS IS CURRENTLY BROKEN :(

roslaunch moveit_visual_tools collision_objects_demo_rviz.launch
roslaunch moveit_visual_tools collision_objects_demo.launch

Code API

See VisualTools Class Reference

Upgrade Notes From Indigo

We recently did a major refactor of moveit_visual_tools in Indigo that caused some API breaking changes. If you do not want to bother, you can still build the old version from source using the branch indigo-devel-old-api.

To upgrade, do the following (or use the upgrade script further down):

Auto Upgrade Script

Run each line in order in the /src of your catkin workspace:

findreplace() { grep -lr -e "$1" * | xargs sed -i "s/$1/$2/g" ;}
findreplace '<moveit_visual_tools\/visual_tools.h>' '<moveit_visual_tools\/moveit_visual_tools.h>'
findreplace moveit_visual_tools::VisualTools moveit_visual_tools::MoveItVisualTools
findreplace 'moveit_visual_tools::' 'rviz_visual_tools::'
findreplace 'rviz_visual_tools::MoveItVisualTools' 'moveit_visual_tools::MoveItVisualTools'

Usage

We’ll assume you will be using these helper functions within a class.

Initialize

Add to your includes:

#include <moveit_visual_tools/visual_tools.h>

Add to your class’s member variables:

// For visualizing things in rviz
moveit_visual_tools::VisualToolsPtr visual_tools_;

In your class’ constructor add:

visual_tools_.reset(new moveit_visual_tools::VisualTools("base_frame","/moveit_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.

There are several other settings you can adjust, which I might get around to documenting in the future:

visual_tools_->setMuted(false);
visual_tools_->setLifetime(20.0);
visual_tools_->setEEGroupName(grasp_data_.ee_group_);
visual_tools_->setPlanningGroupName(planning_group_name_);
visual_tools_->setFloorToBaseHeight(floor_to_base_height);
visual_tools_->setGraspPoseToEEFPose(grasp_pose_to_eef_pose);
visual_tools_->setAlpha(alpha);
visual_tools_->setGlobalScale(scale);
visual_tools_->setBaseFrame(frame_name);

Tools

Now in your code you can easily debug your MoveIt! 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, moveit_visual_tools::RED, moveit_visual_tools::LARGE);

Basic Publishing Functions

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

• publishSphere
• publishArrow
• publishCuboid
• publishLine
• publishBlock
• publishText
• publishTest

And more…

Collision Object Functions

Helpers for adding and removing objects from the MoveIt! planning scene. CO stands for Collision Object and ACO stands for Active Collision Object.

• cleanupCO
• cleanupACO
• attachCO
• publishCollisionBlock
• publishCollisionCylinder
• publishCollisionTree
• publishCollisionTable
• publishCollisionWall

And more…

Animate Trajectories

Higher level robot and trajectory functions

• publishTrajectoryPath
• publishTrajectoryPoint
• publishRobotState
• publishAnimatedGrasps
• publishIKSolutions

Show parts of a robot

These functions are a little more complicated TODO document more

• publishEEMarkers

Helper Functions

Reset function

• deleteAllMarkers - tells Rviz to clear out all current markers from being displayed. Only withs in ROS Indigo and newer.

Conversion functions

• convertPose
• convertPoint32ToPose
• convertPoseToPoint
• convertPoint
• convertPoint32

Convenience functions

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

Available Colors

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

• moveit_visual_tools::RED
• moveit_visual_tools::GREEN
• moveit_visual_tools::BLUE
• moveit_visual_tools::GREY
• moveit_visual_tools::WHITE
• moveit_visual_tools::ORANGE
• moveit_visual_tools::BLACK
• moveit_visual_tools::YELLOW

Available Marker Sizes

• moveit_visual_tools::XXSMALL
• moveit_visual_tools::XSMALL
• moveit_visual_tools::SMALL
• moveit_visual_tools::REGULAR
• moveit_visual_tools::LARGE
• moveit_visual_tools::XLARGE

Lifetime

All markers will persist for the duration set by setLifetime, defaulting to 30 seconds. You can reset this earlier by calling

resetMarkerCounts();

This will cause all new markers to overwrite older ones.

You can also delete all markers (new in ROS Indigo) by calling

deleteAllMarkers();

Developers Notes

Useful notes for anyone wanting to dig in deeper:

• All poses are published with respect to the world frame e.g. /world, /odom, or maybe /base
• All publish() ROS topics should be followed by a ros::spinOnce(); but no sleep
• Do not want to load any features/publishers until they are actually needed since this library contains so many components

Contribute

Feel free to send PRs for new helper functions, fixes, etc. - I’ll happily discuss and merge them. I do not, however, want to send much time helping people use this because I am a busy grad student. Use at your own risk.