It is a continuation of the ROS 1 driver. Which can be found here.
If you are using software for any publication or article, we would be delighted if you could cite it from here.
This package contains a ROS 2 driver for the NatNet protocol used by the OptiTrack motion capture system. It supports NatNet versions 4.0 (Motive 2.2 and higher). The NatNet SDK provided by the optitrack can be found here. It will be downloaded under deps/NatnetSDK
while building it for the first time. NatNet protocol is used for streaming live motion capture data (rigid bodies, skeletons etc) across the shared network.
This package is only tested with the Natnet 4.0 and ROS 2 (Foxy and Humble) but probably will work with the other versions of Motive and ROS 2 as well.
geometry_msgs/PoseStamped
under name given in the Motive, i.e /<body-name>/pose
. Plus those are also broadcasting as tf
frame for rvizgeometry_msgs/PointStamped
unuder the name /<body-name>/marker#/pose
/config/initiate.yaml
are published as geometry_msgs/PoseStamped
or geometry_msgs/PointStamped
unuder the name /<name-in-config-file>/pose
. Plus those are also broadcasting as tf
frame for rviz. The marker position is updated based on Iterative closest point (nearest neighbour)sensor_msgs/PointCloud
requirements
sudo apt install -y ros-$ROS_DISTRO-tf2* wget
Keep your system connected to the internet while building the package for the first time.
cd ~/ros2_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/L2S-lab/natnet_ros2
cd ..
colcon build --symlink-install
. install/setup.bash
Here is an example of how your streaming settings should look.
Using GUI tool Here, you can use simple tool and follow the instruction from the output area on the right bottom corner.
ros2 launch natnet_ros2 gui_natnet_ros2.launch.py
Using Non gui approach
ros2 launch natnet_ros2 natnet_ros2.launch.py
Launch file natnet_ros2.launch.py
contains the several configurable arguments. The details are mentioned in the launch file. Following are several important argument for the connection and the data transfer. Other connection arguments are for the advanced option.
serverIP
: The IP address of the host PC. (The one selected in the Local Interface in Motive app)clientIP
: The IP address of the PC on which the file will be launchedserverType
: Two possible options, multicast
and unicast
It is possible to track the single marker as a rigid body with constant orientation. Go to the config/initiate.yaml
It is suggested to make a copy of the file and rename the new file.
The file contains the details on what to modify.
The question might arise on how to check the position of the single marker. For that, you can log the frames of the incoming data in the terminal. To do so, enable the log_frames
in the launch file.
After configuring the initiate.yaml
, in the launch file, enable the pub_individual_marker
. Change the name of the config file in the argument conf_file
if needed and launch the file.