Something wrong with the python visual module

[amitfishy]

Hi

I try running

roslaunch razor_imu_9dof razor-display.launch

And the publishing works just fine, I can see the published topic /imu.

The problem is in the visualization. I get the following error:

SUMMARY
========

PARAMETERS
 * /rosdistro: kinetic
 * /rosversion: 1.12.13

NODES
  /
    display_3D_visualization_node (razor_imu_9dof/display_3D_visualization.py)

auto-starting new master
process[master]: started with pid [5024]
ROS_MASTER_URI=http://localhost:11311

setting /run_id to f3115532-6588-11e8-ae14-a44cc847fdbe
process[rosout-1]: started with pid [5037]
started core service [/rosout]
process[display_3D_visualization_node-2]: started with pid [5044]
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/amitsinha/catkin_ws/src/razor_imu_9dof/nodes/display_3D_visualization.py", line 31, in <module>
    from visual import *
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/visual/__init__.py", line 66, in <module>
    from visual.ui import display
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/visual/ui.py", line 3, in <module>
    import materials
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/visual/materials.py", line 152, in <module>
    tx_turb3 = raw_texture( data=reshape(data,(64,64,64,3)), interpolate=True, mipmap=False )
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/visual/materials.py", line 70, in __init__
    self.__setattr__(key, value)
ValueError: The truth value of an array with more than one element is ambiguous. Use a.any() or a.all()
[display_3D_visualization_node-2] process has died [pid 5044, exit code 1, cmd /home/amitsinha/catkin_ws/src/razor_imu_9dof/nodes/display_3D_visualization.py __name:=display_3D_visualization_node __log:=/home/amitsinha/.ros/log/f3115532-6588-11e8-ae14-a44cc847fdbe/display_3D_visualization_node-2.log].
log file: /home/amitsinha/.ros/log/f3115532-6588-11e8-ae14-a44cc847fdbe/display_3D_visualization_node-2*.log

The visualization portion doesn't work. On looking into it further, I get the error in the python shell when I try to import the visual module:

$python
Python 2.7.12 (default, Dec  4 2017, 14:50:18) 
[GCC 5.4.0 20160609] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import visual
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/visual/__init__.py", line 66, in <module>
    from visual.ui import display
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/visual/ui.py", line 3, in <module>
    import materials
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/visual/materials.py", line 152, in <module>
    tx_turb3 = raw_texture( data=reshape(data,(64,64,64,3)), interpolate=True, mipmap=False )
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/visual/materials.py", line 70, in __init__
    self.__setattr__(key, value)
ValueError: The truth value of an array with more than one element is ambiguous. Use a.any() or a.all()
>>> 

Any alternate suggestions on visualization? Something like rviz or anything.

Thanks

[andrestoga]

Hi,

Which version of Ubuntu/ROS are you using?

[amitfishy]

I am using Ubuntu 16 with ROS Kinetic.

Thanks, Amit

[andrestoga]

I really don't know what's going on because I installed it in another computer and it works. The reason could be that ros is not loading the python library that corresponds to the python version.

[amitfishy]

Actually it is not working in the Python environment itself when I try a:

>>> import visual
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: No module named visual

Could you please tell me how you installed the python visual library? I'm not able to find documentation on it for some reason.

Thanks, Amit

[andrestoga]

I installed Anaconda that comes with VPython

https://www.anaconda.com/download/#linux

[andrestoga]

Apparently, it is not possible to use VPython with ROS because it only runs on the jupyter notebook... and I don't know how to fix the error that you are having. On the other hand, the IMU orientation can be easily visualized by broadcasting its transformation and displaying it on RViz.

[amitfishy]

Thanks for the help, I did try installing VPython and then trying the import but it didn't really recognize it, I guess RViz is just good enough then.

[AhmedAbdlhamid]

you can check this out , this is an updated version using visual python and ROS in anaconda.also the export file of the environment and guide to run is included. https://github.com/AhmedAbdlhamid/IMU_Razor9DOF