Kinova Vision module package

Overview

This ROS package provides helper methods and launch scripts to access the Kinova Vision module depth and color streams.

Installation (using catkin)

The following instructions are for ROS Kinetic Kame, running under Ubuntu 16.04

Building from Source

Dependencies

GStreamer packages

• gstreamer1.0-tools
• libgstreamer1.0-libav
• libgstreamer1.0-dev
• libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev
• libgstreamer-plugins-good1.0-dev
• gstreamer1.0-plugins-good
• gstreamer1.0-plugins-base

sudo apt install gstreamer1.0-tools gstreamer1.0-libav libgstreamer1.0-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev libgstreamer-plugins-good1.0-dev gstreamer1.0-plugins-good gstreamer1.0-plugins-base

ROS package

• rgbd_launch

sudo apt-get install ros-kinetic-rgbd-launch

Building

To build from source, clone the latest version from this repository into your catkin workspace and compile the package.

1. Create a catkin workspace

mkdir -p ~/catkin_ws/src
cd ~/catkin_ws/src/

2. Clone this git repo into ~/catkin_ws/src

git clone https://github.com/Kinovarobotics/ros_kortex_vision.git

cd ~/catkin_ws/src/
catkin_init_workspace 
cd ..
catkin_make clean
catkin_make
catkin_make install
echo "source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Usage

Start roscore (if not already started)

roscore

Start kinova_vision node

roslaunch kinova_vision kinova_vision.launch

Refer to the Launch files section to see the available launch files.

Start rviz to view both cameras

rosrun rviz rviz

Refer to the Rviz configuration files section to see the configuration files for viewing streams in rviz.

Alternatively, use image_view to view a camera stream:

rosrun image_view image_view image:=/camera/color/image_raw
rosrun image_view image_view image:=/camera/depth/image_raw

The image argument specifies the image topic to subscribe to.

Refer to the Nodes section to see the published topics using the message type sensor_msgs/Image.

Launch files

• kinova_vision.launch: Connect to both the color and the depth camera streams and publish their images as well as the depth point cloud data.

  arguments:

  • device device IP address (default: 192.168.1.10)
  • num_worker_threads number of worker threads for the nodelet manager (default: 4)
  • camera_link_frame_id camera link frame identifier (default: camera_link)
  • color_frame_id color camera frame identifier (default: camera_color_frame)
  • depth_frame_id depth camera frame identifier (default: camera_depth_frame)
  • color_camera_info_url URL of color camera custom calibration file (see camera_info_manager documentation for calibration URL details)
  • depth_camera_info_url URL of depth camera custom calibration file (see camera_info_manager documentation for calibration URL details)

• kinova_vision_rgbd.launch: Connect to both the color and the depth camera streams and publish their images as well as the depth point cloud data with color information.

  arguments:

  • device device IP address (default: 192.168.1.10)
  • num_worker_threads number of worker threads for the nodelet manager (default: 4)
  • camera_link_frame_id camera link frame identifier (default: camera_link)
  • color_frame_id color camera frame identifier (default: camera_color_frame)
  • depth_frame_id depth camera frame identifier (default: camera_depth_frame)
  • color_camera_info_url URL of color camera custom calibration file (see camera_info_manager documentation for calibration URL details)
  • depth_camera_info_url URL of depth camera custom calibration file (see camera_info_manager documentation for calibration URL details)

• kinova_vision_color_only.launch: Connect to the color camera stream only and publish its images.

  arguments

  • device device IP address (default: 192.168.1.10)
  • num_worker_threads number of worker threads for the nodelet manager (default: 4)
  • camera_link_frame_id camera link frame identifier (default: camera_link)
  • color_frame_id color camera frame identifier (default: camera_color_frame)
  • color_camera_info_url URL of color camera custom calibration file (see camera_info_manager documentation for calibration URL details)

• kinova_vision_depth_only.launch: Connect to the depth camera stream only and publish its images as well as the depth point cloud data.

  arguments

  • device device IP address (default: 192.168.1.10)
  • num_worker_threads number of worker threads for the nodelet manager (default: 4)
  • camera_link_frame_id camera link frame identifier (default: camera_link)
  • depth_frame_id depth camera frame identifier (default: camera_depth_frame)
  • depth_camera_info_url URL of depth camera custom calibration file (see camera_info_manager documentation for calibration URL details)

Specifying launch options

It's possible to override the default argument values when launching the kinova_vision node.

Arguments are set using the following syntax: <argument>:=<value>.

For instance, the default value of the device argument can be overridden to specify another IP address.

roslaunch kinova_vision kinova_vision_rgbd.launch device:=10.20.0.100

Additional information on arguments color_camera_info_url and depth_camera_info_url

These arguments specify the custom camera information file to use instead of the default camera information file.

The file is specified via a specific URL syntax, using either of these two formats:

package://<package_name>/relative/path/to/file

file:///absolute/path/to/file

For example:

roslaunch kinova_vision kinova_vision_rgbd.launch color_camera_info_url:=file:///home/user/custom_color_calib_1280x720.ini depth_camera_info_url:=file:///home/user/custom_depth_calib_480x270.ini

A custom camera information file is typically created from a default information file (refer to launch/calibration/default_*.ini). Then, one simply needs to adjust the proper matrices.

The following matrices need to be adjusted with the proper values for FX, FY, PPX, PPY:

camera matrix
FX 0.00000 PPX
0.00000 FY PPY
0.00000 0.00000 1.00000

projection
FX 0.00000 PPX 0.00000 
0.00000 FY PPY 0.00000 
0.00000 0.00000 1.00000 0.00000 

The values for FX, FY, PPX, PPY can be obtained via the Vision module API. They represent the focal length and the principal point offset in both the x and y coordinates.

Rviz configuration files

• color_only.rviz: View the images coming from the color camera only. The package needs to be launched with kinova_vision_color_only.launch, kinova_vision.launch or kinova_vision_rgbd.launch.

• depth_only.rviz: View the images and the depth cloud coming from the depth camera only. The package needs to be launched with kinova_vision_depth_only.launch, kinova_vision.launch or kinova_vision_rgbd.launch.

• depth_and_color.rviz: View the images coming from the color camera as well as the images and the depth cloud coming from the depth camera. The package needs to be launched with kinova_vision.launch or kinova_vision_rgbd.launch.

• depth_and_color_rgbd.rviz: View the images coming from the color camera as well as the images, the RGBD point cloud and the depth cloud coming from the depth camera. The package needs to be launched with kinova_vision_rgbd.launch.

Nodes

kinova_vision_color

This node publishes the raw stream and the meta information of the color camera.

Subscribed Topics

None

Published Topics

• /camera/color/camera_info (sensor_msgs/CameraInfo)

  Color camera calibration and meta information.

• /camera/color/image_raw (sensor_msgs/Image)

  Color camera raw image (RGB8 encoding).

kinova_vision_depth

This node publishes the raw stream and the meta information of the depth camera.

Subscribed Topics

None

Published Topics

• /camera/depth/camera_info (sensor_msgs/CameraInfo)

  Depth camera calibration and meta information

• /camera/depth/image_raw (sensor_msgs/Image)

  Depth camera raw image (millimeters - 16UC1 encoding).

camera_color_tf_publisher

This node publishes the static coordinate transformation between the color camera frame (camera_color_frame) and the camera link frame (camera_link).

Subscribed Topics

None

Published Topics

• /tf_static (tf2_msgs/TFMessage)

  Color camera frame static transformation

camera_depth_tf_publisher

This node publishes the static coordinate transformation between the depth camera frame (camera_depth_frame) and the camera link frame (camera_link).

Subscribed Topics

None

Published Topics

• /tf_static (tf2_msgs/TFMessage)

  Depth camera frame static transformation

camera_nodelet_manager

This node uses rgbd_launch package to create a nodelet graph, transforming raw data from the device driver into point clouds, rectified images, and other products suitable for processing and visualization.

Subscribed Topics

• /camera/color/camera_info (sensor_msgs/CameraInfo)

  Color camera calibration and meta information

• /camera/color/image_raw (sensor_msgs/Image)

  Color camera raw image

• /camera/depth/camera_info (sensor_msgs/CameraInfo)

  Depth camera calibration and meta information

• /camera/depth/image_raw (sensor_msgs/Image)

  Depth camera raw image

Published Topics

• /camera/color/image_rect_color (sensor_msgs/Image)

  Color rectified image (RGB8 encoding)

• /camera/depth/image (sensor_msgs/Image)

  Depth image (meters - 32FC1 encoding)

• /camera/depth/image_rect (sensor_msgs/Image)

  Depth rectified image (meters - 32FC1 encoding)

• /camera/depth/image_rect_raw (sensor_msgs/Image)

  Depth rectified image (millimeters - 16UC1 encoding)

• /camera/depth/points (sensor_msgs/PointCloud2)

  Depth camera point cloud data

• /camera/depth_registered/points (sensor_msgs/PointCloud2)

  Depth camera point cloud data with color information (RGBD)