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moon-wreckers / vive_tracker

HTC Vive Tracker Node for ROS
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Link to a video of this project in action.

This ROS Indigo Node publishes pose data from HTC Vive Tracker Ubuntu 14.04.

Note: This depends on SteamVR on Ubuntu. Be advised that SteamVR is not fully supported on Ubuntu and may not install properly with your version of Ubuntu/graphics drivers/hardware. I recommend you try to get SteamVR installed on your computer before considering this node for your project.

Prerequisites

Up to date graphics drivers

x86 architecture

SteamVR requires >4GB disk space

Installation Instructions

  1. Install the latest VulkanSDK from here.

    1. Download the latest VulkanSDK .run file, and run it in a turminal chmod u+x ./vulkansdk* && ./vulkansdk*

    2. Enter the directory and install to your system cd VulkanSDK/1.* && sudo ./install/install_to_sys

    3. Add this directory to your system environment source /absolute/path/to/VulkanSDK/setup-env.sh >> ~/.bashrc

    4. source ~/.bashrc

  2. Install Steam from http://store.steampowered.com/

    1. Install dependencies for OpenVR. sudo apt-get install libsdl2-dev libudev-dev libssl-dev zlib1g-dev python-pip

    2. Open steam with steam command, or through the Ubuntu menu. Make a Steam account & Log in.

    3. Enable the Steam beta through the Steam Menu -> Settings -> Account -> Beta Participation. See the video here to see how to enable the beta.

    4. (Recommended) Save your credentials while logging in, and once you do log in open the Steam Menu item in the top left corner and select Go Offline. This prevents Steam from updating every time you use the Vive Tracker.

  3. Install SteamVR.

    1. Click Library

    2. Click VR

    3. On the left you should now see SteamVR. Select it and click the the blue Install button.

  4. Make a Symbolic Link from libudev.so.0 to libudev.so.1 for SteamVR to use.

sudo ln -s /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libudev.so.1 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libudev.so.0

  1. Install pyopenvr

sudo pip install -U pip openvr

  1. Disable the headset requirement and enable a null (simulated) headset:

gedit ~/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/SteamVR/resources/settings/default.vrsettings

  1. Change the third line from "requireHmd" : true, to "requireHmd" : false,

  2. Add "activateMultipleDrivers" : true, and add the line "forcedDriver": "null" beneath it.

  3. Open default.vrsettings

gedit ~/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/SteamVR/drivers/null/resources/settings/default.vrsettings

  1. Set enable (line 3) to true in null driver to enable it.

    Source

  1. Install this project in your catkin workspace.
cd ~/catkin_ws/src/
git clone https://github.com/moon-wreckers/vive_tracker.git
cd ~/catkin_ws
catkin_make

Usage

  1. Start SteamVR from the Steam Library (If you encounter VRClientDLLNotFound, make sure all of the dependencies are installed properly, especially VulkanSDK, and delete and recreate the symbolic link described above).

  2. Turn on the tracker with its button, and make sure that its wireless USB dongle is plugged in to your computer. If the tracker shows up in the SteamVR overlay skip to step 4.

  3. Sync the tracker. Hold the button on the tracker until the light blinks. On the SteamVR overlay click the "SteamVR" dropdown menu. Click Devices->Pair Controller. The Tracker should then pair with the computer, and a green outline of the tracker should appear on the SteamVR overlay. If this doesn't work try unplugging the wireless USB dongle, plugging it back in, and restarting SteamVR. Restarting your computer wouldn't hurt either.

  4. Ensure the Lighthouse base stations are turned on, facing each other, have green lights showing on them Place the tracker in view of the Base Stations. The SteamVR overlay should now show two green square Base Stations and a solid green Tracker hexagon. The tracker is now working.

    1. If you're only using 1 Base Station, make sure it's set to mode A.

    2. If you're using 2 Base Stations without a sync cable, ensure they're set to modes B and C.

    3. If you're using 2 Base Stations with a sync cable, ensure they're set to modes A and B.

  5. Run this ROS node. 

source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash
roslaunch vive_tracker vive_tracker.launch
  1. Now open another terminal and run rostopic echo /vive_tracker to view the x y z roll pitch yaw output from the tracker.

  1. (Optional) Start RViz in another terminal with rviz

  2. (Optional) In the lower left corner of RViz click on Add, and scroll down the Add menu to add a TF. If all went well you should now be able to see the tracker moving in RViz.

  3. If for some reason it isn't working, check to ensure that the Tracker is turned on, SteamVR is still running, the tracker icon is green, and the vive_tracker ros node is still running.

Command Line

Here's a handy command, run this in the command line to start SteamVR with the command steamvr

alias steamvr='LD_LIBRARY_PATH=~/.steam/bin32/ ~/.steam/bin32/steam-runtime/run.sh ~/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/SteamVR/bin/vrstartup.sh' >> ~/.bashrc && source ~/.bashrc

This will start the server in another process, so you're free to keyboard interrupt (Ctrl+C) the terminal once the server starts.

To kill the SteamVR process:

sudo pkill -9 vr*

Links

This is based off of Triad Semiconductor's awesome tutorial found here:

http://help.triadsemi.com/steamvr-tracking/steamvr-tracking-without-an-hmd/

Also thanks to Christopher Bruns for his work on pyopenvr.

https://github.com/cmbruns/pyopenvr