3
$\begingroup$

I am currently trying to run the test cow and lady dataset with Voxblox. The process appears to execute properly in the terminal, but I cannot view the mesh in RViz.

When I try to add the topic voxblox_node/mesh to RViz, the topic name is greyed out and I cannot add the topic. This topic is listed under "unvisualizable topics".

Unvisualizable Topics

In Rviz, I tried creating a topic of type MarkerArray and manually typing in the topic name to add it. This does not work and I get the following error:

process[voxblox_node-2]: started with pid [18452]
[ INFO] [1523646547.806476760]: Opening /media/ubuntu/jetsontx2b/data/voxblox/data.bag
[ INFO] [1523646548.104770697]: Static transforms loaded from file.
T_B_D:
    0.971048      0.15701    -0.180038 -0.000432202
   -0.120915     0.973037     0.196415   -0.0522007
    0.206023    -0.168959      0.96385   -0.0341353
           0            0            0            1
T_B_C:1 0 0 0
0 1 0 0
0 0 1 0
0 0 0 1
[ERROR] [1523646548.172363508]: Client [/rviz_1523646021870801813] wants topic /voxblox_node/mesh to have datatype/md5sum [visualization_msgs/MarkerArray/d155b9ce5188fbaf89745847fd5882d7], but our version has [voxblox_msgs/Mesh/ca70fabcc211b61f795cb5e7c8210eb6]. Dropping connection.
[ INFO] [1523646549.056998208]: Updating mesh.

The Voxblox documentation states that the node voxblox_node publishes:

mesh of type visualization_msgs::MarkerArray. A visualization topic showing the mesh produced from the tsdf in a form that can be seen in RViz.

Why doesn't Rviz recognize mesh as a MarkerArray? What do I need to do to get Rviz to visualize /voxblox_node/mesh?

Thanks.

$\endgroup$
1
  • $\begingroup$ I'm in the same situation. Did you find a solution? $\endgroup$
    – martinako
    Jul 12, 2018 at 13:51

2 Answers 2

3
$\begingroup$

So the doc's were out of date. I just updated them as the mesh is actually of type voxblox_msgs::MeshBlock. Voxblox use to output a standard MarkerArray, however this form of visualization means you have to output the entire mesh every time any part of it changes. This meant when running on a robot and visualizing on a laptop we were saturating our wifi connection to display even relatively small areas.

To correct this issue we made a custom message that supports partial updates only changing the mesh where needed. To use this custom message you have to build voxblox_rviz_plugin and have it in your workspace when running rviz.

$\endgroup$
1
$\begingroup$

I had this problem too. You just have to source the corresponding setup.bash for the terminal that runs rviz and the /voxblox_node/mesh topic will be available to show in rviz.

$\endgroup$

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge that you have read and understand our privacy policy and code of conduct.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.