Only released in EOL distros:   fuerte indigo

This page describes the RGB-D SLAM system for ROS Fuerte. There is a successor, rgbdslam_v2 for ROS Hydro and Indigo. See README.

For the electric version and many details that still hold true, see this page.

Download and Installation

If you are not a ROS user yet, follow the instructions at the bottom of this page.

Download rgbdslam with the following command to your ros workspace.

svn co http://alufr-ros-pkg.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/rgbdslam_freiburg

ROS needs to be aware of the folder into which you download rgbdslam_freiburg! Make sure that the folder containing rgbdslam_freiburg is in your ROS_PACKAGE_PATH (see ros workspace for how to modify the ROS_PACKAGE_PATH. It is a bad idea to put rgbdslam_freiburg into /opt/ros/fuerte/...). If properly configured "roscd rgbdslam" will take you to the rgbdslam package directory

If not yet installed, install rosdep first, then execute

rosdep update
rosdep install rgbdslam_freiburg

This should take care of all system dependencies (e.g. libg2o, octomap).

You can then compile it with

rosmake rgbdslam_freiburg

which will take a while. If you encounter problems, here is an example build logfile for a successful build for reference (Revision 3949).

As mentioned in rgbdslam_electric, if ROS dependencies are still not met for some reason, you might need to install the following dependencies

sudo apt-get install libglew1.5-dev libdevil-dev libsuitesparse-dev

Configuration

There are several example launch-files that set the parameters of RGB-D SLAM for certain use cases, a complete list of all options and their current settings can be found in the GUI: "Settings"->"View Current Settings". For a definitive list of all settings and the default values have a look at their quite readable definition in src/parameter_server.cpp.

I am still adapting the various use-case launch-files to fuerte and the new openni stack, so some of the launchfiles might not work correctly yet. You should get them running if you fiddle with the topics ("rostopic list" and "rosnode info" will help you. "rxgraph" is great too).

Usage

If you want to use RGB-D SLAM with a Kinect or Xtion Pro, you should install openni_launch. If you want to edit the saved point clouds you might want to install meshlab.

Most people seem to want the registered point cloud. It is by default sent out on /rgbdslam/batch_clouds when you command RGB-D SLAM to do so (see below). The clouds sent are actually the same as before, but the according transformation - by default from /map to /openni_camera - is sent out on /tf.

This is also the way the octomap_server gets the point clouds. Just make it listen to the mentioned topic and set the fixed frame_id to /map (See the launch file octomap_server.launch)

USAGE with GUI

To start RGBDSLAM launch

  roslaunch rgbdslam kinect+rgbdslam.launch

Alternatively you can start the openni nodes and RGBDSLAM separately, e.g.:

  roslaunch openni_launch openni.launch
  rosrun rgbdslam rgbdslam

To capture models either press space to start recording a continuous stream or press enter to record a single frame. To reduce data redundancy, sequential frames from (almost) the same position are not included in the final model. The 3D visualization always shows the globally optimized model. Neighbouring points are triangulated except at missing values and depth jumps.

Usage via ROS service calls (possibly headless)

The RosUI is an alternative to the Grapical_UI and lets you use rgbdslam via service-calls. This allows you, e.g. to run the rgbdslam headless, for example on the PR2. The possible calls are:

• /rgbdslam/ros_ui {reset, quick_save, send_all, delete_frame, optimize, reload_config, save_trajectory}
• /rgbdslam/ros_ui_b {pause, record} {true, false}
• /rgbdslam/ros_ui_f {set_max} {float}
• /rgbdslam/ros_ui_s {save_octomap, save_cloud, save_g2o_graph, save_trajectory, save_features, save_individual} {filename}

See below for a detailed description of all options. To start the rgbdslam headless use the headless.launch:

        roslaunch rgbdslam headless.launch

Example service calls:

        rosservice call /rgbdslam/ros_ui frame # Capture single frames via
        rosservice call /rgbdslam/ros_ui_b pause false # Capture a stream of data
        rosservice call /rgbdslam/ros_ui send_all # Send point clouds with computed transformations (e.g., to rviz or octomap_server)
        rosservice call /rgbdslam/ros_ui_s save_cloud /tmp/mycloud.pcd # Save the registered pointclouds in the given file
        rosservice call /rgbdslam/ros_ui_s save_individual /tmp/filenameprefix # As above, but save every pointcloud in its own file

Detailed command descriptions:

/rgbdslam/ros_ui:

• reset resets the graph, delets all nodes (refreshes only when capturing new images)

• frame capture one frame from the sensor

• optimize trigger graph optimizer

• reload_config reloads the paramters from the ROS paramter server

• quick_save saves all pointclouds in one file quicksave.pcd in rgbdslam/bin-directory

• send_all sends all pointclouds to /rgbdslam/transformed_cloud (can be visualized with rviz)

• delete_frame delete the last frame from the graph (refreshes only when capturing new images)

/rgbdslam/ros_ui_b:

• pause <flag> pauses or resumes the capturing of images

• record <flag> pauses or stops the recording of bag-files, can be found in the rgbdslam/bin-directory

/rgbdslam/ros_ui_f:

• set_max <float> filters out all datapoints further away than this value (in cm, only for saving to files)

/rgbdslam/ros_ui_s:

• save_features <filename> saves the feature locations and descriptors in a yaml file with the given filename

• save_cloud <filename> saves the cloud to the given filename (should end with .ply or .pcd)

• save_individual <fileprefix> saves every scan in its own file (appending a suffix to the given prefix)

• save_octomap <filename> saves the cloud to the given filename

• save_trajectory <fileprefix> saves the sensor trajectory to the file <fileprefix>_estimate.txt

Performance

RGB-D SLAM has many options to customize its behavior. You can speed it up significantly by

• enabling concurrency on multi-core machines. The three corresponding parameter names start with "concurrent_..."
• using SIFTGPU features, if you have a GPU, ORB otherwise
• compile in "Release" configuration (see build type options in CMakeLists.txt)
• decreasing the "max_keypoints" parameters
• decreasing the "geodesic_candidates" and "min_sampled_candidates"
• setting the kinect driver to QVGA (There's a bug in the camera_info of the driver. See/use the launchfile qvga-kinect+rgbdslam.launch for a workaround)

However, the last three options and using ORB will probably decrease the accuracy.

Problems

• Error in this wiki: Please fix it!
• Installation/Compilation: Report via e-mail. Patches are welcome!
• Bug in the code: As above.

• Crashes: A brief debugging help can be found here

• Questions: See the FAQ

RGB-D SLAM for "Not-yet" ROS Users

If you aren't using ROS yet and just want to use RGB-D SLAM on Ubuntu (tested with Ubuntu "precise pangolin" 12.04), here's an installation walkthrough:

# Better pick a mirror close to you.
# See http://ros.org/wiki/ROS/Installation/UbuntuMirrors
sudo sh -c '. /etc/lsb-release && echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu $DISTRIB_CODENAME main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.list'

wget http://packages.ros.org/ros.key -O - | sudo apt-key add -

sudo aptitude update

# This will draw gigabytes from the network:
sudo apt-get install ros-fuerte-perception-pcl ros-fuerte-vision-opencv ros-fuerte-octomap-mapping python-rosdep

echo 'source /opt/ros/fuerte/setup.bash' >> ~/.bashrc

echo 'export ROS_PACKAGE_PATH=~/ros:$ROS_PACKAGE_PATH' >> ~/.bashrc

. ~/.bashrc

svn co http://alufr-ros-pkg.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/rgbdslam_freiburg ~/ros/rgbdslam_freiburg

sudo rosdep init

rosdep update

rosdep install rgbdslam_freiburg

roscd rgbdslam

# This will take a while:
rosmake rgbdslam_freiburg

If this reports no failures, you successfully installed the RGB-D SLAM system.

To use it with a Kinect/Xtion Pro you need to install the camera driver:

sudo apt-get install ros-fuerte-openni-launch

For usage, see above.