Changes include the addition of tolerance to network interruptions and the option of speed or position control for PTZ functions

[paulmilliken]

I have forked the axis_camera package on github and made a few changes:

• I added code to address issue https://github.com/clearpathrobotics/axis_camera/issues/1 by polling the camera every few seconds until it reappears.
• I addressed issue https://github.com/clearpathrobotics/axis_camera/issues/15 by removing the axis_twist.py script and modifying axis_ptz.py to allow the user to choose between position control and speed control. Speed control is likely to be more appropriate for teleoperation. A Twist message could still be used to control speed, by writing a simple ros node to subscribe to Twist and translate to an Axis message (using speed control in the axis_ptz.py node). This "translator" node would also provide a place to apply controller gains for some kind of slow autonomous control loop.
• I addressed Issue https://github.com/clearpathrobotics/axis_camera/issues/19 by logging errors with rospy.logwarn and rospy.loginfo
• I changed the tab size from 2 spaces to 4 spaces. It's just my personal preference for python coding so, if you choose to include my changes, feel free to change it back to whatever you prefer.
• I added some launch files to test the code. The most interesting is test_speed_control.launch (which also requires https://github.com/paulmilliken/teleop_view.git which is based on code for the image_view node)
• There were quite a few changes so I incremented the version number in my fork.
• I haven't touched or tested the publish_axis_tf.py node at all. I'm interested to hear you thoughts, especially if you think something could have been implemented in a better way. Paul

[jack-oquin]

A fix for #1 is extremely welcome. Thanks, Paul!

Note that there is considerable overlap between this and pull request 17. We should probably do some work to merge those two versions.

[paulmilliken]

Hi Jack, Regarding issue https://github.com/clearpathrobotics/axis_camera/issues/1 , you're welcome. I had a look at pull request https://github.com/clearpathrobotics/axis_camera/pull/17 and it looks like a merge will be relatively straightforward once I gain an understanding of Sphinx so I'll aim to look at it next week.

[jack-oquin]

There's not much Sphinx logic there, just the basic rosdoc configuration and an index.rst that includes the README and CHANGELOG.

My intention is to add in-line Sphinx documentation to the Python modules, but none of that is done yet.

[paulmilliken]

Jack, I just merged your pull request https://github.com/clearpathrobotics/axis_camera/issues/17 and committed to https://github.com/paulmilliken/axis_camera.git. There were very few conflicts to resolve. However, I have assumed that axis_twist.py, teleop_twist.py and axis_all.py will be replaced by the extended functionality of axis_ptz.py which now has the option of either speed control or position control. I thought this was the tidiest way to avoid replication of similar functions in different files but I welcome feedback if this approach is not to everyone's taste.

[jack-oquin]

Sounds fine. I'm glad it wasn't difficult.

Maybe I should cancel #17, to avoid confusion?

[paulmilliken]

Ok. That sounds sensible as long as you are happy with the way I merged the changes.

[jack-oquin]

It's fine. I made a copy/paste error in the title of the index.rst, but it's not worth fixing right now.

Pull requests that sit in the queue for a month are a drag on productivity.