how to manually translate a point from one frame to another

Question

Hello

I would like to know how to manually translate a point in the base_footprint frame to the odom frame. For example, I have a point that is at x = 1 and y = 1 and yawZ = 45º and I want to know where this point is in the Odom frame. How can I manually calculate this point? Is there a translation matrix that I can use? Any example?

header: 
  seq: 7486
  stamp: 
    secs: 74
    nsecs: 871000000
  frame_id: "odom"
child_frame_id: "base_footprint"
pose: 
  pose: 
    position: 
      x: 0.469335747998
      y: 0.647538786158
      z: -0.000006047411929 
    orientation: 
      x: -0.000021128906712 
      y: -0.000009339980052 
      z: -0.461892491102
      w: -0.886935919968



 target_pose:
    header:
      seq: 0
      stamp:
        secs: 0
        nsecs: 0
      frame_id: 'base_footprint'
    pose:
      position:
        x: 1.0
        y: 1.0
        z: 0.0
      orientation:
        x: 0.0
        y: 0.0
        z: 0.383000
        w: 0.924000" 

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Originally posted by mateusguilherme on ROS Answers with karma: 125 on 2020-06-21

Post score: 0

Answer 1

You can just multiply the transform. Example, lets call:

oTb ( transform between odom and base_footprint, odom is the parent.)

bTf ( transform between base_footprint and frame, base_footprint is the parent.)

oTf ( transform between odom and frame, odom is the parent.)

frame here is the target_pose

oTf = oTb * bTf

So, you get this transform and simple multiply then and you have your result, the tf package and Transform class natively support this operation.

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Originally posted by Teo Cardoso with karma: 378 on 2020-06-21

This answer was ACCEPTED on the original site

Post score: 1

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Original comments

Comment by Solrac3589 on 2020-06-22:
just to extend to this question.

a dynamic way to find transforms should be to use transform listener (from tf2)

add the following dependencies

#include <tf2_ros/buffer_interface.h>
#include <tf2_ros/transform_listener.h>
#include <tf2_eigen/tf2_eigen.h>

(you should also add in CMakeLists.txt and pckage.xml) then you create a transform listener and buffer (in header should be awesome):

tf2_ros::Buffer tf2_buffer__;
std::shared_ptr<tf2_ros::TransformListener> tf_listener_ptr__;

inside the class definition declare the transform listener using you buffer:

tf_listener_ptr__.reset(new tf2_ros::TransformListener(tf2_buffer__));

then, alwasy you want to have a transform, just do:

geometry_msgs::TransformStamped transform = tf2_buffer__.lookupTransform("odom","base_footprint", ros::Time(0), ros::Duration(0.5));

Comment by Solrac3589 on 2020-06-22:
another way to do it (more static, in case the transform never change) is using eigen library https://eigen.tuxfamily.org/dox/group__TutorialGeometry.html This way you can find easily a transform matrix given the values you put in the question

Comment by mateusguilherme on 2020-06-22:
thank you for the tips! I also found another method:

tf2_ros::BufferInterface -> transform (const T &in, T &out, const std::string &target_frame, ros::Duration timeout=ros::Duration(0.0))

I'm in doubt about the meaning of ros::Duration(0.0), means "generate an out pose based on the last available transform"