Realsense ROS Tools

Overview

The repository provides the realsense_ros_tools ROS package, which wrapped realsense-ros/ros1-legacy for running RGB-D cameras manufactured by Intel Realsense.

Installation

Prerequisite

This package is a simple wrapper for the official realsense2_camera package. Therefore, you should ensure the installation of the package first.

To install Realsense SDK 2.0, use the command below:

sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -sSf https://librealsense.intel.com/Debian/librealsense.pgp | sudo tee /etc/apt/keyrings/librealsense.pgp > /dev/null
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/librealsense.pgp] https://librealsense.intel.com/Debian/apt-repo `lsb_release -cs` main" | \
sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/librealsense.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install librealsense2-dkms librealsense2-utils

To install ROS driver, use the following command:

sudo apt install ros-noetic-realsense2-camera ros-noetic-rgbd-launch

If you need, see more details in Realsense ROS Wrapper Installation Instructions.

We utilize rosbag for logging the data stream. Install rosbag_fancy package by using the command below:

sudo apt install ros-noetic-rosbag-fancy

If you need, see more details about rosbag_fancy.

Build package

After the prerequisite configuration, use the following commands to download and compile the package.

cd ~/catkin_ws/src   # navigate to your workspace
git clone https://github.com/Ikhyeon-Cho/realsense_ros_tools.git
cd ..
catkin build realsense_ros_tools    # or catkin_make

Getting Started

1. Run the device

To start running Realsense RGB-D camera, you should connect to the device first. After, use the command below:

roslaunch realsense_ros_tools rs_camera.launch

To launch with rviz for data stream visualization, use the command below:

roslaunch realsense_ros_tools test_rs_camera.launch

You can give several command-line arguments to the launch files.

• align_depth (bool, default: true)
  When set to true, depth image resized and aligned to the RGB image is published. Also, sensor_msgs/PointCloud2 ROS message that has RGB8 field is published.

• fps (int, default: 15)
  Camera image fps (frame per second). The driver natively supports 15/30/60/90 fps values. Any other values will result in the setting of 30 FPS, which is the device default.

Here is an example command using launch argument options:

# FPS: 30Hz
# No Depth alignment, no point clouds published

roslaunch realsense_ros_tools rs_camera.launch fps:=30 align_depth:=false

2. Record data

To record the image streams, use the command below. Before starting the records, make sure that the device is running.

roslaunch realsense_ros_tools rs_record.launch    # Default: 'rs_camera.bag' is saved to ~/Downloads folder

The command will save the rosbag file to $HOME/Downloads folder. By default, the name of rosbag is rs_camera.bag.

For assigning a specific name to the rosbag, use the command with bag_file:= launch argument like below:

roslaunch realsense_ros_tools rs_record.launch bag_file:=example.bag    # now, 'example.bag' is saved

3. Data playback

To playback the recorded rosbag, use the following command. By default, we assume that rosbag files are located at ~/Downloads folder.

roslaunch realsense_ros_tools rs_from_rosbag.launch bag_file:=rs_camera.bag   # Playback rs_camera.bag

To launch with rviz for data stream visualization, use the command below:

roslaunch realsense_ros_tools test_rs_from_rosbag.launch bag_file:=rs_camera.bag    # With Rviz visualization

You can give several command-line arguments to the launch files.

• bag_file (string, default: rs_camera.bag)
  The bagfile name for playing.

• enable_pointcloud (bool, default: true)
  When set to true, sensor_msgs/PointCloud2 ROS message that has RGB8 field is published. This is done by using depth_image_proc/point_cloud_xyzrgb nodelet. It reproduces the pointclouds from RGB image and (aligned) Depth image.

• playback_speed (double, default: 1.0)
  The playback speed of bagfile.

• start_time (double, default: 0.0)
  The start time of bagfile playback.