vrpn_client_ros

⚠️ Use ros2 branch: tested and approved on ros2 galactic 🌠

vrpn_client_ros is a ROS2 package that provides a interface for the Virtual-Reality Peripheral Network (VRPN) library. This package allows users to easily connect to VRPN servers and receive tracking and other data from a variety of devices such as motion trackers, joysticks, and haptic devices.

Installation

To install vrpn_client_ros, you can clone the repository into your workspace and build it using colcon:

cd <path/to/ws>/src
git clone https://github.com/hidro-iri/vrpn_client_ros.git
cd ..
colcon build --packages-select vrpn_client_ros

Usage

vrpn_client_ros provides a vrpn_client_node executable that can be launched to connect to a VRPN server and receive tracking data from a device. The node subscribes to a topic called /<device_name>/pose and publishes the latest pose data for the device on that topic.

To use the vrpn_client_node, you can launch it with the appropriate configuration. For example, to connect to a VRPN server running on localhost, you can run:

ros2 run vrpn_client_ros vrpn_client_node --ros-args --params-file <path/to/config.yaml>

where config.yaml contains:

vrpn_client_node:
  ros__parameters:
    server: localhost
    frame_id: "world"
    use_server_time: false
    broadcast_tf: true
    refresh_tracker_frequency: 0.2
    update_frequency: 120.0

Configuration

The vrpn_client_node can be configured using a YAML file passed as a command-line argument. The configuration file specifies the VRPN server to connect to.

Launch files

The package provides a launch file sample.launch.py that demonstrates how to launch the vrpn_client_node with a configuration file.

Nodes

The package provides a single node, vrpn_client_node, that connects to a VRPN server and publishes pose data for devices.

Topics

The vrpn_client_node subscribes to a topic for each device specified in the configuration file. The topic name is in the format /<device_name>/pose, where <device_name> is the name of the device as specified in the configuration file.

Services

The package does not provide any services.