README

A ROS2 publisher for Nuitrack pose tracking. Currently this has been tested on Ubuntu 18.04 with ROS2 Dashing with the Intel Realsense D435. This README will become more detailed as I set things up on additional computers.

Setup

This installation process is dicey. I was able to set up the Nuitrack on an Intel NUC, twice, but not on a Lenovo laptop. For questions, the most useful resource is probably Nuitrack's community forums.

1. Things you'll need:

   • Windows PC that is strong enough to run Unity
   • Intel Realsense d435
   • A Nuitrack license (free version will work, but you still have to have them email it to you, can take 20 minutes or so), which you can get here

2. Follow Nuitrack install instructions here, note that there are notes on their instructions below:

   • If you run into a confilct with openni-utils when you try to use dpkg to install Nuitrack, you should remove openni-utils with

       sudo apt-get remove openni-utils
     

     then install Nuitrack

       sudo dpkg -i <nuitrack package>
     

   • For ubuntu 18.04, install libpng12-0 - it's hidden on this page (click security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu)

     Ubuntu - Package Download Selection -- libpng12-0_1.2.54-1ubuntu1.1_amd64.deb

   • Make sure that NUITRACK_HOME and LD_LIBRARY_PATH include your a path to Nuitrack. It tells you to put them in a script in init.d, this hasn't worked for me; just put them at the end of your ~/.bashrc (or ~/.zshrc if you use zsh).

     Developers area - Intel RealSense SDK 2.0 - Depth and Tracking cameras

3. Allegedly, Nuitrack comes with drivers for the Intel Realsense, but this hasn't worked for me. Feel free to skip this step and come back if you cannot create a camera object. You can test this by running nuitrack_c11_sample, if you are unable to access the camera, follow the instructions to get the Realsense drivers. If you do install the camera, make sure to test that you can access the camera with the Realsense Viewer (realsense_viewer from command line). If you have errors, just try to enable the stereo image, anyway.

   Developers area - Intel RealSense SDK 2.0 - Depth and Tracking cameras

4. Activate Nuitrack's license, from command line, from anywhere, run nuitrack_license_tool.

   • If the activation doesn't work, make sure that no programs accessing the camera are running. If there are, turn them off and try activating again.

   • If you still have trouble, run the nuitrack_sample to get a better understanding of why the license isn't activating. Try searching on the Nuitrack community forms for a solution.

     Nuitrack

   • Afterwards, you should be able to run nuitrack_sample to see that things are working.

5. Install Nuitrack's SDK to a known location (you'll be referencing it in any project that builds with Nuitrack)

   • Test that you can build a project with Nuitrack.

       cd <NuitrackSDK>/Examples/nuitrack_console_sample
       mkdir build
       cd build
       cmake ..
       make
       ./nuitrack_console_sample
     

6. That's it! Nuitrack works! Now, you just need to link to the includes directory in the SDK to build a project that uses Nuitrack.

Note, that I was unable to get Nuitrack to run with ROS1, because of a Boost library conflict (probably solvable for someone more knowledgable with CMake), and I was unable to activate Nuitrack's license on a Docker container.

Be sure to change the path to Nuitrack's SDK in nuitrack_app/CMakeLists.txt (see line 8).

Running it

1. Make sure that you have ROS2 Dashing installed, if not, see here

2. Source your ROS environment

    source /opt/ros/dashing/setup.bash
   

3. Make a ROS2 workspace (skip if you already have a ROS2 workspace that you'd like to use)

    mkdir -p ~/ros2_ws/src # or anywhere else you'd like
    cd ~/ros2_ws
    colcon build
   

4. Clone this repository into your ROS2 source directory.

    cd ~/ros2_ws/src
    git clone https://github.com/audrow/ros2_nuitrack
   

5. Change the nuitrack_app/CMakeLists.txt to point to your Nuitrack SDK includes folder (see line 8)

6. Build the project

    cd ~/ros2_ws
    colcon build --symlink-install
   

7. Source your current workspace

    source ~/ros2_ws/install/setup.bash
   

To test that it works, use the following command ros2 run nuitrack_app publisher. From another terminal, you can echo the topics to see that things are working okay, specifically:

# In terminal 1
source /opt/ros/dashing/setup.bash
source ~/ros2_ws/install/setup.bash
ros2 run nuitrack_app publisher

# In terminal 2
ros2 topic echo /Skeletons