Hello i am new to ROS and i would like to visualize my radar data on rviz. My radar.msg is made in this way :
uint8 id
float32 distance_sd_m
float32 angle_sd_deg
float32 velocity_sd_m__s
float32 distance_m
float32 angle_deg
float32 velocity_m__s
float32 width_m
float32 length_m
Originally posted by stitch on ROS Answers with karma: 1 on 2017-09-19
Post score: 0
As far as I know there is no RViz plugin for this type of sensor. In my work I've regularly used the marker message type to visualise complex information that isn't currently supported. Using this type you can visualise any 3D color mesh data you can generate. It's a bit tricky if you're new to ROS but I can post some code examples if you're using C++.
Here is an example code segment that creates a marker mesh message, you'll then need to publish this message to a topic to see it in RVIZ. Once the message has been created and setup you're basically adding a color value then three vertices for each triangle, each triangle can be a different color (in my example they're all the same).
This example uses a vector of Eigen::Vector3f to represent the vertices and a vector of custom triangle structures, you can replace this with anything you wish for your own project.
// create Mesh message
visualization_msgs::Marker meshMarker;
// setup Triangle_List marker message
meshMarker.header.frame_id = "Coordinate_frame_id";
meshMarker.header.stamp = ros::Time();
meshMarker.ns = "custom_mesh";
meshMarker.id = 0;
meshMarker.type = visualization_msgs::Marker::TRIANGLE_LIST;
meshMarker.action = visualization_msgs::Marker::ADD;
meshMarker.pose.position.x = 0;
meshMarker.pose.position.y = 0;
meshMarker.pose.position.z = 0;
meshMarker.pose.orientation.x = 0.0;
meshMarker.pose.orientation.y = 0.0;
meshMarker.pose.orientation.z = 0.0;
meshMarker.pose.orientation.w = 1.0;
meshMarker.scale.x = 1;
meshMarker.scale.y = 1;
meshMarker.scale.z = 1;
meshMarker.color.a = 1.0;
// create temp vertex and color objects.
geometry_msgs::Point vertex;
std_msgs::ColorRGBA meshColor;
// add triangles
for (int f=0; f<triangles.size(); ++f)
{
meshColor.r = 1.0;
meshColor.g = 0.5;
meshColor.b = 0.0;
meshMarker.colors.push_back(meshColor);
// add triangle to mesh
vertex.x = vertices[triangles[f].v1][0];
vertex.y = vertices[triangles[f].v1][1];
vertex.z = vertices[triangles[f].v1][2];
meshMarker.points.push_back(vertex);
vertex.x = vertices[triangles[f].v2][0];
vertex.y = vertices[triangles[f].v2][1];
vertex.z = vertices[triangles[f].v2][2];
meshMarker.points.push_back(vertex);
vertex.x = vertices[triangles[f].v3][0];
vertex.y = vertices[triangles[f].v3][1];
vertex.z = vertices[triangles[f].v3][2];
meshMarker.points.push_back(vertex);
}
Originally posted by PeteBlackerThe3rd with karma: 9529 on 2017-09-21
This answer was ACCEPTED on the original site
Post score: 0
Comment by stitch on 2017-09-21:
Yes I am using C++.
I had heard of the markers but I couldn't get to a solution.
Thank you very much, your codes would be a great help!
Comment by stitch on 2017-09-26:
Can you please post those examples?
Comment by PeteBlackerThe3rd on 2017-09-26:
I've just added it to my original post. Let me know if you have any questions getting this going.
Comment by stitch on 2017-09-26:
This is a special type of marker(similar to http://wiki.ros.org/rviz/Tutorials/Markers%3A Basic Shapes) ...but still i can't see how to represent the radar data through it
Comment by PeteBlackerThe3rd on 2017-09-26:
You're right it is one of the basic marker types in rviz.
The beauty of this message type is you write nodes to generate them for all different types of information.
Work out how you want the radar information displayed in rviz, then write a node to convert the radar message to a mesh.