My roommate and I recently discussed this in the middle of our latest optimal control and estimation homework. We talked about how to visualize a 3x3 or even a 9x9 covariance matrix. I think an rviz plugin would be the best solution, but I haven't seen or heard of anything so far to do this.
William (Mar 05 '11)edit
Generally, the discussion was a deformed sphere for representing 3-dimension position data uncertainty. Representing pointing (roll/pitch/yaw) could then be a color map on the sphere. This only leaves one dimension of uncertainty out.
mjcarroll (Mar 05 '11)edit
Indeed, this is also what came to my mind. A 2x2 or 3x3 covariance matrix could be visualized by computing the Eigenvectors and -values and then rotating and scaling a sphere marker accordingly. I did it similar for the 2D case here (non ROS): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbVFB4-vz4MStefan Kohlbrecher (Mar 06 '11)edit
Exactly what we were talking about. Perhaps it is time to add something like this into RVIZ's capabilities.
mjcarroll (Mar 06 '11)edit
I did this also in Matlab, with 2D laser data, object separation with gaussian/ellipsoids.
szokei (Mar 11 '11)edit
