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Static route validation using costmap

I am trying to implement a validator for routes on a given map. The idea is that a user can define a route using a JSON scheme which is then checked against a costmap generated from a static map of the building in order to determine whether the route can be traversed. Ideally, the whole thing should run on a server without any robots involved.

I am new to ROS and am having a few difficulties figuring out the dependencies between the map_server and the costmap. Here's what I tried so far:

  1. I have the map of the building and the corresponding YAML file and have started the map server using rosrun map_server map_server map.yaml.

  2. I tried running rosrun costmap_2d costmap_2d_cloud, which produces no output on the console.

  3. In rviz, I can add the voxel_marked_cloud and voxel_unknown_cloud topics published by costmap, but they are not displayed.

  4. rqtgraph shows me that costmap is not subscribed to the /map topic published by mapserver:

    rqt_graph map_server costmap_2d

  5. I have tried starting the costmap with YAML config files using parameters static_map: true and publish_voxel_map: true, but to no avail.

What am I doing wrong? Currently I am just trying to get a static costmap to display from a map image and failing.

Asked by jpfender on 2015-06-08 05:57:16 UTC

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Answers

Costmap_cloud is merely a visualization tool. What interface are you looking for?

Edit: If you run the first command (the map server), the occupancy grid topic "/map" is broadcast and you can view that in rviz with the Map plugin.

Asked by David Lu on 2015-06-09 19:49:23 UTC

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I'm not necessarily looking for a specific interface, merely a way to easily extract a static costmap from an existing map in order to then validate a given path on that map. I'm imagining a simple tool that accepts a map and a list of coordinates and determines whether that path is possible.

Asked by jpfender on 2015-06-10 04:26:14 UTC