ROS

LIPS OpenNI2 SDK is fully compatible with ROS. In this article, we demonstrate how to use ROS wrapper to access 3D cameras and display pointcloud in Rviz viewer.

Prerequisite

• Install OpenNI2 SDK

ROS Installation

we use Ubuntu 20.04 and ROS Noetic in the following tutorial. You can also find official install documentation here

• Install ROS via apt

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.list'
curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ros/rosdistro/master/ros.asc | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ros-noetic-desktop-full

• Install dependencies

sudo apt install python3-rosdep python3-rosinstall python3-rosinstall-generator python3-wstool build-essential python3-rosdep

• Install some useful ROS packages (e.g. rviz viewer)

sudo apt-get install ros-noetic-rgbd-launch ros-noetic-image-view rviz

• Before using any ROS command, some environment variables need to be setup. You can do that by executing setup.bash which ROS provide

source /opt/ros/noetic/setup.bash

• Initialize ROS and install all ROS dependencies

sudo rosdep init
rosdep update

Using OpenNI2 ROS Wrapper

• Create the workspace

mkdir -p ~/LIPSToF_ws/src
cd ~/LIPSToF_ws/src
catkin_init_workspace

• Download LIPS ROS wrapper

cd ~/LIPSToF_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/lips-hci/openni2_camera

• Run launch script

chose launch script according to your camera.

• run_DL.sh for DL

• run_M3.sh for M3

• run_SL.sh for L210/L215

cd ~/LIPSToF_ws
ln -s src/openni2_camera/run_DL.sh .
./run_DL.sh

Rviz Viewer

After camera topic is launched, You can now use Rviz viewer to see video streams or pointcloud.

• Launch Rviz viewer in terminal

rviz

• Set Fixed Frame from the Displays panel on the left panel to camera_link

• Click Add on the bottom of Displays panel. Switch to By Topic tab, select /depth_registered > /points > PointCloud2. Then click OK.

• Now you can see the pointcloud