Dynamic Configuration Written to .yamls

[lthursdayl]

We would like the detection and tracking dynamic configuration (rosrun rqt_reconfigure rqt_reconfigure) to write directly to the associated .yaml file, then automatically restart the sensor(s) that the change was made to, thus applying the changes to the sensor.

[nanodust]

i second this - as it would be a huge time-saver on large networks ( ie, 6 machines... editing yamls is a full time job, even with distributed shell)

[jburkeucla]

I'll follow up with the chela team about potentially implementing this.

[ernestmc]

The ROS standard way to dump configuration parameters is using rosparam dump dump.yaml /namespace
http://wiki.ros.org/rosparam
If you want to dump specifically the dynamic parameters you can use the syntax rosrun dynamic_reconfigure dynparam dump /node dump.yaml
http://wiki.ros.org/dynamic_reconfigure

[ernestmc]

The following exampe shows how to save the configuration of a node:

1. Open a terminal on the master.

2. List all dynamic reconfigure nodes:

$ rosrun dynamic_reconfigure dynparam list
/ground_based_people_detector_kinect01
/ground_based_people_detector_kinect02
/ground_based_people_detector_kinect03
/ground_based_people_detector_kinect04
/ground_based_people_detector_kinect05
/moving_average_filter_node
/tracker_node

3. Save the configuration of a selected node into a yaml file:

$ rosrun dynamic_reconfigure dynparam dump /ground_based_people_detector_kinect01 ground_based_people_detector_kinect01.yaml

4. Load a configuration for a node from a file:

$ rosrun dynamic_reconfigure dynparam load /ground_based_people_detector_kinect01 ground_based_people_detector_kinect01.yaml

Note: for these commands to work correctly you need to update to the latest version of the packages. See ros/dynamic_reconfigure#51

@jburkeucla @lthursdayl do you want me to add this information to the wiki? What would be the best place to put this?

In future work we should think of further automating this process, for example to automatically keep track of the name of the saved node so as to restore to the same one on loading. One option is to add save/load buttons to the current gui or create a new gui for our needs.