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Waiting on transform from /base_link to /map?

asked 2011-07-29 02:43:54 -0500

sam gravatar image

updated 2011-07-29 02:49:43 -0500

In http://www.ros.org/reps/rep-0105.html

says "map --> odom --> base_link"

and "Although intuition would say that both map and odom should be attached to base_link, this is not allowed because each frame can only have one parent."

In tf src,I have built two connections

    tf::Transform(tf::Quaternion(0,0,0, 1), tf::Vector3(0, 0, 0)),
    ros::Time::now(),"base_link", "base_laser")

    tf::Transform(tf::Quaternion(0,0,0, 1), tf::Vector3(20, 0, 0)),
    ros::Time::now(),"base_link", "odom")

If I write map->odom,it will says contain a loop.I don't know why.

    tf::Transform(tf::Quaternion(0,0,0, 1), tf::Vector3(0, 0, 0)),
    ros::Time::now(),"odom", "map")

My robot.launch says

  [ WARN] [1311950065.207360272]: Waiting on transform from /base_link to /map to become available before running costmap, tf error: Could not find a connection between '/map' and '/base_link' because they are not part of the same tree.Tf has two or more unconnected trees.
  1. What happened to base_link with two parents?
  2. Why map->odom will contain a loop?
  3. How to fix all the problems? Thank you~
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Comments

1
The output of `rosrun tf view_frames` can be very helpful for debugging this type of problem. I suggest you run it while everything is running and attach the PDF here.
Eric Perko gravatar image Eric Perko  ( 2011-07-29 03:20:14 -0500 )edit

2 Answers

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answered 2011-07-29 09:44:01 -0500

dornhege gravatar image

You are broadcasting those code-sniplets (for testing!), right?

You have to build a tree, or in this case a line as: map -> odom -> base_link -> base_laser

If you look at the code sniplets you have posted, you can see, that you interchanged parent and child a bid.

You also have to continuously publish all transforms and later on obviously with real data. If that doesn't help follow the comment by Eric Perko.

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Yeah,it's only for testing. And I am not really understand that what's the difference between "map->odom" and "odom->map"?
sam gravatar image sam  ( 2011-07-30 01:54:10 -0500 )edit
2

answered 2011-07-31 05:31:25 -0500

The difference between "map->odom" and "odom->map" is who is the parent and who the child in the tf tree.

In the example code that you posted you're publishing base_link as parent of base_laser and odom, and then map as parent of odom. Map and base_link cannot both be parents of odom. The error that you reported usually happens when two parents of the same node are being published, resulting is an unconnected tree. I suggest you to visualize your tf tree using "rosrun tf view_frames" as Eric says.

It could be helpful to know which nodes are you running, because other nodes could be broadcasting tf transforms.

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Sorry for the unclear question before. My question is if my program only have one transform between map and odom, the difference between "map->odom" and "odom->map" is the only value difference of positive sign or negative sign,right?
sam gravatar image sam  ( 2011-07-31 15:42:00 -0500 )edit
No, since TF is not only about vectors but also about rotations. It's essentially the inverse transformation. The tree on a robot is defined by the links on the robot and you cannot interchange child and parent nodes randomly. Did you have a look at the tf tutorial videos on ros.org/wiki/tf?
Lorenz gravatar image Lorenz  ( 2011-07-31 23:15:49 -0500 )edit
Yes,what I think is if "map -> odom -> base_link -> base_laser" is correct,can I change it to "base_laser -> base_link -> odom -> map" by the inversion you said and get the totally same result?
sam gravatar image sam  ( 2011-08-01 00:59:31 -0500 )edit
For such a degenerated tree it should work, but breaks the conventions. As soon as you have a robot with more than one sensor it will not work so easily anymore because you need a proper tree then where /map or some other fixed frame is the root.
Lorenz gravatar image Lorenz  ( 2011-08-01 01:03:30 -0500 )edit

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Asked: 2011-07-29 02:43:54 -0500

Seen: 6,073 times

Last updated: Jul 31 '11