"roslaunch pi_tracker skeleton.launch" Fails

edit

Hi GeniusGeeko,

Looks like the SamplesConfig.xml file disappeared in the new openni_kinect package recently released. As a quick fix, I have copied the SamplesConfig.xml file from the ni stack into the pi_tracker params directory and modified the skeleton.launch file accordingly. If you do a "svn update" in the pi_tracker directory, hopefully the launch will then work OK.

--patrick

P.S. I just noticed that even though the above update fixed the problem on my machine, the skeleton_tracker process can sometimes die on the first attempt. If that occurs, type Ctrl-C in the launch window to kill all the nodes, then try the launch again. I think I have seen this before with other Kinect applications. Perhaps some kind of "wait for openni topic" is required in my skeleton_tracker.cpp file...

UPDATE: If you haven't already, roscd into pi_tracker, then run a "make clean" followed by "make" to rebuild the skeleton_tracker binary.

If this still doesn't work, can you please provide a little more info about your setup? Helpful information would include. Are you successfully running other ROS packages with your Kinect? Are you using Cturtle or Diamondback? Debian packages or SVN? Ubuntu or other OS? The NI stack from http://www.ros.org/wiki/ni (which is now officially depreciated) or the newer openni_kinect stack? (And if the latter, the Debian package or the latest from the repository?)

Also, can you include whether or not your machine supports SSE3? On Ubuntu, you can use the command "cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep sse3" to see if appears among the flags.

Finally, can you run the following modified launch file that will fire up the gdb debugger which should tell us the error that is causing the process to die? When you launch this file, a separate xterm will pop up with a gdb prompt. When you get the prompt, enter the command "run" and then copy and paste any output that results. To close the gdb window, type the "quit" command:

<launch>    
    <param name="robot_description" command="$(find xacro)/xacro.py '$(find pi_tracker)/urdf/pi_robot.urdf.xacro'" />
    <param name="/use_sim_time" value="False" />

    <node name="robot_state_publisher" pkg="robot_state_publisher" type="state_publisher">
        <param name="publish_frequency" value="20.0"/>
    </node>

    <include file="$(find openni_camera)/launch/kinect_frames.launch" />

    <node launch-prefix="xterm -e gdb --args" name="skeleton_tracker" pkg="pi_tracker" type="skeleton_tracker">
        <param name="load_filepath" value="$(find pi_tracker)/params/SamplesConfig.xml" />
        <rosparam command="load" file="$(find pi_tracker)/params/tracker_params.yaml" />
    </node>

    <node pkg="tf" type="static_transform_publisher" name="base_world_broadcaster" args="0 0 0 0 0 0 /base_link /world 100" />
</launch>