Doing several things at the same time in Rviz

asked 2012-09-19 20:05:57 -0500

Brioche

115 ●10 ●13 ●21

updated 2016-10-24 08:59:27 -0500

ngrennan
1 ●1 ●1

Hi all,

I wrote a program to move my urdf model around Rviz. It works fine when I have /odom (xyz yaw) on Fixed Frame and /base_link (principal link of my urdf model) on Target Frame thanks to this tutorial.

I would like to add a point cloud from a Kinect but when I add a point cloud with any topics from the /openni_camera, I have an error on my pointcloud2 topic:

No transform to fixed frame [/odom]. TF error: [Unable to lookup transform, cache is empty, when looking up transform from frame [/openni_rgb_optical_frame] to frame [/odom]]

That is quite understandable but how can I add a point cloud if I want to move my robot? Should I send everything on the same topic? kind of messy and not even sure it will work...

Thank you for giving me any leads

Brioche

answered 2012-09-19 22:26:30 -0500

Lorenz

22731 ●129 ●202 ●316 http://ias.in.tum.de/p...

You need a valid tf tree that also contains the frame /openni_rgb_optical_frame. This is normally done by creating a urdf file of your robot (have a look at these tutorials) and running the robot_state_publisher. The state publisher will read your urdf file and publish the links in it as tf frames. Then rviz will visualize the point cloud in the right frame.

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Yes but I also make my robot move by publishing its position on /odom (http://ros.org/wiki/urdf/Tutorials/Using%20urdf%20with%20robot_state_publisher) so I don't understand how I can connect my /odom and /openni_rgb_optical_frame ... When I read tf it's not really clear for me... sorry

Brioche ( 2012-09-20 20:21:03 -0500 )edit

I assume the node for publishing your odometry information is publishing a transform from /odom to your robot's root link, e.g. /base_link. As Lorenz says, you then need to have a transform from the point cloud's reference frame (e.g. /openni_rgb_optical_frame) to your robot's root frame. ...

bit-pirate ( 2012-09-20 21:25:40 -0500 )edit

You can do this by using the mentioned robot_state_publisher in combination with a URDF file. Or, for a simple test, you can also use the static transform publisher to publish the transform robot's root frame -> point cloud's reference frame

bit-pirate ( 2012-09-20 21:30:18 -0500 )edit

RViz will combine the provided information to visualise the point cloud linked to the moving robot.

bit-pirate ( 2012-09-20 21:31:15 -0500 )edit

Thanks, so if I well understood, I should modify my cpp to have /optical_..._frame as my header.frame_id and odom and base_link as child_frame_id. (according to the robot state publisher tuto) I will try it tomorrow

Brioche ( 2012-10-01 20:12:57 -0500 )edit

It is ok to set openni_optical_frame as header.frame_id of your point cloud. But make sure that your urdf file contains a link that is also named openni_optical frame. Then make sure you run the robot_state_publisher node. It will publish a tf tree generated from your urdf.

Lorenz ( 2012-10-01 22:23:04 -0500 )edit

For the curious: I've tranformed my /odom in /openni_rgb_optical_frame and not my base_link this /odom was my header.id and now I have my robot moving and my kinect point cloud! Thanks a lot bit-pirate and Lorenz

Brioche ( 2012-10-04 14:24:06 -0500 )edit

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