RMF Web

Open-RMF Web is a collection of packages that provide a web-based interface for users to visualize and control all aspects of Open-RMF deployments.

• Quick start with docker
• Getting started from source
• API server
• API client
• Dashboard
• Configuration
• Contribution guide
• Roadmap

Quick start with docker

These docker images are useful when trying out rmf_demos.

Start the dashboard with host network access, RMF_SERVER_URL and TRAJECTORY_SERVER_URL configured accordingly. The dashboard will then accessible on localhost:3000 by default.

docker run \
  --network host -it --rm \
  -e RMF_SERVER_URL=http://localhost:8000 \
  -e TRAJECTORY_SERVER_URL=ws://localhost:8006 \
  ghcr.io/open-rmf/rmf-web/dashboard:latest

Note The values provided for RMF_SERVER_URL and TRAJECTORY_SERVER_URL are default values when running the API server and rmf_demos, and can be modified to suit different setups.

Start the API server with host network access, and set up the correct ROS_DOMAIN_ID and ROS 2 RMW implementation that will be used in the rest of the Open-RMF system. The API server will use the default port at localhost:8000.

docker run \
  --network host -it --rm \
  -e ROS_DOMAIN_ID=<ROS_DOMAIN_ID> \
  -e RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=<RMW_IMPLEMENTATION> \
  ghcr.io/open-rmf/rmf-web/api-server:latest

Note Users can also configure the API server using a mounted configuration file and setting the environment variable RMF_API_SERVER_CONFIG. In the default scenario, the API server will use an internal non-persistent database.

Getting started from source

Prerequisites

We currently support Ubuntu 24.04, ROS 2 Jazzy and Open-RMF's 22.09 release. Other distributions may work as well, but is not guaranteed.

Install pnpm and nodejs

curl -fsSL https://get.pnpm.io/install.sh | bash -
pnpm env use --global lts

For Debian/Ubuntu systems,

sudo apt install python3-pip python3-venv

Installing Open-RMF

Refer to the following documentation for either building from source or installing released binaries:

• rmf

Note Simulation demos are not part of the released binaries, and therefore a built workspace with at least the demos repository would be required for trying out the web dashboard with simulation.

Install dependencies

Run

pnpm install

You may also install dependencies for only a subset of the packages

pnpm install -w --filter <package>...

Launching for development

Source Open-RMF and launch the dashboard in development mode,

# For binary installation
source /opt/ros/jazzy/setup.bash

# For source build
source /path/to/workspace/install/setup.bash

cd packages/dashboard
pnpm start

This starts up the API server (by default at port 8000) which sets up endpoints to communicate with an Open-RMF deployment, as well as begin compilation of the dashboard. Once completed, it can be viewed at localhost:3000.

If presented with a login screen, use user=admin password=admin.

Ensure that the fleet adapters in the Open-RMF deployment is configured to use the endpoints of the API server. By default it is http://localhost:8000/_internal. Launching a simulation from rmf_demos_gz for example, the command would be,

ros2 launch rmf_demos_gz office.launch.xml server_uri:="http://localhost:8000/_internal"

Launching for development separately

When developing individual components, it may be useful to start the dashboard and api-server separately,

# Start the dashboard in dev, this monitors for changes in the dashboard package and performs rebuilds. A browser refresh is required after all automated builds.
cd packages/dashboard
pnpm run start:react

# Start the API server, this will need to be restarted for any changes to be reflected
cd packages/api-server
pnpm run start

Optimized build

The dashboard can also be built statically for better performance.

cd packages/dashboard
pnpm run build

# Once completed
npm install -g serve
serve -s build

This only serves the frontend, the API server can be started manually to work with an Open-RMF deployment on another terminal instance,

# source Open-RMF before proceeding
cd packages/api-server
pnpm run start

Contribution guide

• For general contribution guidelines, see CONTRIBUTING.
• Follow typescript guidelines.
• When introducing a new feature or component in react-components, write tests and stories.
• When introducing a new feature in dashboard, write tests as well as e2e test whenever possible.
• When introducing API changes with api-server,
  • If the new changes are to be used externally (outside of the web packages, with other Open-RMF packages for example), make changes to rmf_api_msgs, before generating the required models using this script with modified commit hashes.
  • Don't forget to update the API client with the newly added changes with these instructions.
• Check out the latest API definitions here, or visit /docs relative to your running server's url, e.g. http://localhost:8000/docs.
• Develop the frontend without launching any Open-RMF components using storybook.
• For integration with new devices/infrastructure, check out Robot Interaction Objects (RIO).
• Update documentation alongside development, and update the ros2multirobotbook where necessary.

Configuration

• See the rmf-dashboard docs for the frontend build-time and run-time configurations.
• See the api-server docs for API server run-time configurations.

Troubleshooting

• If a feature is missing or is not working, it could be only available in an Open-RMF source build, and not in the binaries. Try building Open-RMF from source and source that new workspace before launching the API server. rmf-web may use in-development features of Open-RMF.

• Creating tasks from the web dashboard when running a simulated Open-RMF deployment will require the task start time suit simulation time, which starts from unix millis 0. Try creating the same task with a start date of before the year of 1970.

• If floorplans for map levels are not loading, please check and verify that walls have been added to the levels in .building.yaml using traffic-editor or rmf_site. The dashboard uses the bounding box encompassing all wall vertices to create scene boundary for rendering, therefore if no wall vertices are present, the scene boundary becomes invalid and the floor fails to render.

• Check if the issue has already been reported or fixed.