ROS Kinetic & Ubuntu 16.04

The tutorial about debugging /tf has some major issues, or my brain does. Probably the latter. (http://wiki.ros.org/tf/Tutorials/Debugging%20tf%20problems)

First, I start the start_debug_demo.launch file. A turtle sim comes up, with a live and dead turtle, and a

"turtle3" passed to lookupTransform argument target_frame does not exist

error, as expected. Except my error looks like

"turtle3" passed to lookupTransform argument target_frame does not exist. 

My first clue.

In learning_tf /src I create the turtle_tf_listener.debug.cpp file. Somehow the tutorial also forgets to mention that I need to put add_executable(...) in the CMakeLists.txt . But I put it in.

I'm not sure why it's expected that this cpp would erase the error. The error existed before the creation of this turtle_tf_listener_debug.cpp file. It's clear this cpp file is completely unattached to the launch file.

According to the tutorial, you mention "turtle3" in this cpp file. Then you change it to "turtle2" and hooray, the "turtle3 doesn't exist" error is gone. Except, no it isn't. I already put "turtle2" in this cpp file. Doesn't change the error. As expected, the startdebugdemo.launch is not in contact with this cpp file. I investigate:

I go to $roscd turtle_tf to look inside. Doesn't have /src or /nodes. Just /rviz and /cmake and /launch.

I look inside /opt/ros/kinetic/share/turtle_tf/launch which has the start_debug_demo.launch. I open it with gedit.

<node name="turtle_pointer" pkg="turtle_tf" type="turtle_tf_listener_debug" respawn="false" output="screen"  </node>

Sure enough, it doesn't even mention learning/tf/src 's cpp file. If I change it to

<node name="turtle_pointer" pkg="learning_tf" type="turtle_tf_listener_debug" respawn="false" output="screen"  </node> 

I do the catkinmake, the source bash, re-run roscore, and try again, I still get errors about "turtle3" not existing. But where am I mentioning "turtle3"? Not in the launch file. Not in the cpp file for the nodes. And there's no alternative turtletflistenerdebug.cpp files that I can find. Only the one I created. Rqt_graph doesn't show any "turtle3". view_frames of course doesn't show any "turtle3" either.

The CMakeLists.txt from learning_tf package (created in the tutorials):

cmakeminimumrequired(VERSION 2.8.3)

project(learning_tf)

find_package(catkin REQUIRED

COMPONENTS roscpp rospy tf

turtlesim) catkinpackage( # INCLUDEDIRS include # LIBRARIES learningtf # CATKINDEPENDS roscpp rospy tf turtlesim # DEPENDS systemlib ) includedirectories( # include ${catkinINCLUDEDIRS} )

addexecutable(turtletflistenerdebug src/turtletflistener_debug.cpp)

targetlinklibraries(turtletflistenerdebug ${catkinLIBRARIES})

addexecutable(turtletfmessagefilter src/turtletfmessage_filter.cpp)

targetlinklibraries(turtletfmessagefilter ${catkinLIBRARIES})

/opt/ros/kinetic/share/turtletf does not contain a CMakeLists.txt but does containt a /cmake/turtletfCongif-version.cmake

According to the tutorial, I should be witnissing timestamp errors now. But I'm still getting "turtle3" errors. What did I do wrong? Where are these coming from?