Quicker refresh/restart method for streaming ros topics

[alsaibie]

Hi,

When streaming rostopics, would it be possible to refresh the stream update if I restart the nodes, rather than have to stop streaming, restart and reload the topics?

Any pointers to where that can be implemented will be appreciated.
I have the latest master ver: 1.6.2

Great tool by the way, thanks.

[facontidavide]

UPDATE:

If your roscore is not shut down, you can start, stop and restart your publishing nodes and Plotjuggler will receive the new messages without user's intervention.

On the other hand, is the roscore and the publishing nodes are shut down, then indeed PlotJuggler will require to stop/start the streamer to connect again.

If this is what you meant (confirm), I think there is a way to improve the user experience.
Something like a Pop-Up that says "Roscore is down, do you want to reconnect?"

Davide

[alsaibie]

Actually, you are right. I'll just keep roscore running in the background to keep the plots alive. Didn't consider that. That solves my concern. I was spawning master off nodes directly.

For a user experience, definitely a reconnect option when roscore went down/restarted would be useful. Instead of the stop-start-reselect topics route. Or have PlotJuggler keep a ros master running? But that may interfere with other ros use scenarios.

[facontidavide]

I don't think PlotJuggler should keep the roscore running.
I created a branch in which I started playing around with some code changes https://github.com/facontidavide/PlotJuggler/tree/issue_88

My plan is to detect that the roscore was killed using ros::master::check() and ask the user if the plugin should be stopped or else...

I think I will have something usable the next week.

[facontidavide]

Hi,

ok, I think I have done ;)

Take a look to this video to see how the new feature on the branch https://github.com/facontidavide/PlotJuggler/tree/issue_88 works.

https://vimeo.com/276755814

If it looks okay, let me know, and I will merge it with master

Cheers

[alsaibie]

Hi,

Just tried it out. Works like a charm.

Thank you very much!

[CorentinChauvin]

Hello,

I think I found a small bug about it. Here is how I made it crash :

• Start the ROS_Topic_Streamer, but close the dialog without selecting any topic.
• Start the ROS_Topic_Streamer again. At this moment, the dialog doesn't even appear, and PlotJuggler crashes.

Nevertheless, thank you very much for this tool!
Corentin

[facontidavide]

Thanks for reporting, I will check this.

[facontidavide]

fixed with last commit. Thanks again