How to use canonical_scan_matcher with Kinect

Question

I'm interested in using canonical_scan_matcher to estimate odometry with just the Kinect sensor. Has anybody out there already tried that?

I'm using pointcloud_to_laserscan with openni_kinect to provide fake laser scans with this launchfile (I haven't made any changes to openni_node.launch nor kinect_frames.launch):

<launch>
  <!-- kinect and frame ids -->
  <include file="$(find openni_camera)/launch/openni_node.launch"/>

  <!-- openni manager -->
  <node pkg="nodelet" type="nodelet" name="openni_manager" output="screen" respawn="true" args="manager"/>

  <!-- throttling -->
  <node pkg="nodelet" type="nodelet" name="pointcloud_throttle" args="load pointcloud_to_laserscan/CloudThrottle openni_manager">
    <param name="max_rate" value="2"/>
    <remap from="cloud_in" to="/camera/depth/points"/>
    <remap from="cloud_out" to="cloud_throttled"/>
  </node>

  <!-- fake laser -->
  <node pkg="nodelet" type="nodelet" name="kinect_laser" args="load pointcloud_to_laserscan/CloudToScan openni_manager">
    <param name="output_frame_id" value="/openni_depth_frame"/>
    <remap from="cloud" to="cloud_throttled"/>
  </node>
</launch>

This seems to work nicely, I haven't got a laser scanner to be able to compare the results, though. Naturally the big difference between a laser scanner and the fake laser scan I'm obtaining is the much narrower field of view (57 instead of 240 degrees).

How to configure the canonical_scan_matcher to get the best of it with Kinect? I'm using the following launchfile:

<launch>
  <node pkg="canonical_scan_matcher" type="csm_node" name="csm_node" output="screen" />
  <node pkg="tf" type="static_transform_publisher" name="base_link_to_laser" args="0.0 0.0 0.0 0 0 0.0 /base_link /openni_depth_frame 40" />
  <node pkg="rviz" type="rviz" name="rviz"/>
</launch>

but I guess I'm still missing something. AFAIK, /openni_depth_frame is a right-handed Cartesian coordinate system with the z axis pointing out of the IR-camera's lens. /scan is being published in the same tf.

Do you, nice people, see any mistakes in the files provided? canonical_scan_matcher is publishing tf, but the results I can see in rviz are definitely not satisfactory. In the room I'm testing it, the Kinect sees 3 walls, the 2 right angles between them and some other minor features, shouldn't it be enough?

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Originally posted by tom on ROS Answers with karma: 1079 on 2011-03-23

Post score: 1

Answer 1

Your overall idea and approach is correct.

I think you are running into a problem with tf's here. You are publishing a static tf to /openni_depth_frame, but (if you are using the openni launch files) there is already a static tf being published from openni_camera to openni_depth_frame. Try it without the static tf line in your launch file. You want your setup to be the following:

world_frame: world
base_frame: openni_camera
scan_frame: openni_depth_frame

Pass the world_frame and base_frame parameters to csm.

Once you get your tf's working, we can look into what matching parameters work best.

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Originally posted by Ivan Dryanovski with karma: 4954 on 2011-03-23

This answer was ACCEPTED on the original site

Post score: 2