ros2-helper

Terminal-first helper tools for ROS 2.

ros2 topic graphic /scan
ros2 topic graphic /camera/image_raw --fps 10
ros2 topic graphic /joint_states

The ros2_helper package ships graphic, a terminal viewer for common sensor topics. The ROS 2 CLI plugin is intentionally thin and delegates rendering to the C++ executable ros2-helper-graphic.

Supported Graphic Topics

• sensor_msgs/msg/Image
• sensor_msgs/msg/CompressedImage
• sensor_msgs/msg/LaserScan
• sensor_msgs/msg/JointState

Install

Official ROS Packages

After this package is released through the ROS build farm for Jazzy:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install ros-jazzy-ros2-helper
source /opt/ros/jazzy/setup.bash

The apt package name follows the official ROS convention: ros-$ROS_DISTRO-ros2-helper.

From Source

Until the ROS build farm release is available, build from a ROS 2 workspace:

source /opt/ros/$ROS_DISTRO/setup.bash
colcon build --packages-select ros2_helper
source install/setup.bash

If this package is not in a workspace yet:

mkdir -p ~/ros2_ws/src
cd ~/ros2_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/codevilot/ros2-helper.git
cd ~/ros2_ws
source /opt/ros/$ROS_DISTRO/setup.bash
colcon build --packages-select ros2_helper
source install/setup.bash

Reproducible Docker Environment

Docker is for reproducible development, testing, and demos. It does not replace the official ROS APT installation path; production and user installation should use sudo apt install ros-jazzy-ros2-helper once the package is released.

Build the Jazzy source-build image:

docker build -f docker/Dockerfile.jazzy -t ros2-helper:jazzy .

Run an interactive container:

docker run --rm -it ros2-helper:jazzy

Run a focused graphic demo:

docker run --rm -it ros2-helper:jazzy ros2 topic graphic /scan --fps 10

Run the interactive helper shell:

docker run --rm -it ros2-helper:jazzy ros2 tui

Open the helper shell directly on the node page:

docker run --rm -it ros2-helper:jazzy ros2 tui node

For an automatic smoke test:

docker run --rm ros2-helper:jazzy timeout 8 ros2 topic graphic /scan --fps 10

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