How to visualize data with RVIZ

The included launch file camera.launch.py will publish and remap all topics and services to /ifm3d/camera, for example the point cloud topic will be remapped to /ifm3d/camera/cloud. Both the namespace (default: ifm3d) and the node name (default: camera) can be changed via the launch description files.

A pre-configured RViz2 will be launched when setting the visualization argument of the launch file to true. Be aware that the RViz configuration assumes the default namespace and node name. You have to change the topic subscriptions yourself when using non-default values.

ros2 launch ifm3d_ros2 camera.launch.py visualization:=true

Viewing the RGB image

The RGB image is published on the /ifm3d/camera*/rgb topic in a compressed JPEG format. This is useful to save bandwidth, but cannot be visualized as-is with RViz.

The image can be uncompressed using the image_transport republish node:

$ sudo apt install ros-humble-compressed-image-transport
$ ros2 run image_transport republish compressed raw --ros-args --remap /in/compressed:=/ifm3d/camera/rgb --remap out:=/uncompressed_rgb

In RViz, you can now subscribe to the /uncompressed_rgb topic to visualize the RGB image.

QoS reliability - best effort

When you open RVIZ for the first time and subscribe to the point cloud topic, it will not be displayed as we need to change the default quality of service (QoS) settings per topic.

To change these settings:

1. subscribe to a topic in RVIZ by adding it (ADD button)

2. Expand the topic settings

3. Select reliability and set it to Best Effort