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ON THIS PAGE

  • Install from source
  • Install dependencies
  • Setting up procedure
  • Docker
  • Running prebuilt images
  • Building
  • Running docker image on ROS1
  • Running docker image on ROS2

Install from source

Install dependencies

The following script will install depthai-core and update usb rules and install depthai devices
Command Line
1sudo wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/luxonis/depthai-ros/main/install_dependencies.sh | sudo bash
if you don't have opencv installed then try sudo apt install libopencv-devif you don't have rosdep installed and not initialized please execute the following steps:
Command Line
1sudo apt install python3-rosdep
2sudo rosdep init
3rosdep update

Setting up procedure

The following setup procedure assumes you have cmake version >= 3.10.2 and OpenCV version >= 4.0.0. We selected dai_ws as the name for a new folder, as it will be our depthai ros workspace.
  1. mkdir -p dai_ws/src
  2. cd dai_ws/src
  3. git clone --branch <ros-distro> https://github.com/luxonis/depthai-ros.git
  4. cd ..
  5. rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -r -y
  6. source /opt/ros/<ros-distro>/setup.bash
  7. catkin_make_isolated (For ROS1) MAKEFLAGS="-j1 -l1" colcon build (for ROS2)
  8. source devel/setup.bash (For ROS1) & source install/setup.bash (for ROS2)
Note If you are using a lower end PC or RPi, standard building may take a lot of RAM and clog your PC. To avoid that, you can use build.sh command from your workspace (it just wraps colcon commands): ./src/depthai-ros/build.sh

Docker

You can additionally build and run docker images on your local machine. To do that, add USB rules as in above step.

Running prebuilt images

Each tagged version has its own prebuilt docker image. To download and run it:
Command Line
1xhost +local:docker
to enable GUI tools such as rviz or rqt.Then
Command Line
1docker run -it -v /dev/:/dev/  --privileged -e DISPLAY -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix luxonis/depthai-ros:noetic-latest [CMD]
Where [CMD] is what's going to be executed when container is initially run and could be for example:
  • bash (it will allow you to browse files and make modifications to the code and rebuild it)
  • zsh (other shell that is installed that has some advantages over bash)
  • roslaunch depthai_ros_driver camera.launch (this is just an example, any launch file will work here) A side note here, launch files in depthai_ros_driver have some default parameters set by .yaml files inside the driver. You can either edit them inside the container itself, or you can make a .yaml file on your host (let's say /home/YOUR_USERNAME_HERE/params/example_config.yaml) and pass it as an argument to the executable, as follows:
Command Line
1docker run -it -v /dev/:/dev/ -v /home/YOUR_USERNAME_HERE/params:/params --network host --privileged -e DISPLAY -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix luxonis/depthai-ros:noetic-latest roslaunch depthai_ros_driver camera.launch params_file:=/params/example_config.yaml
Note, to make images more compact only some external dependencies are installed, for example if you want to try out RTABMap example in docker, you have to:
  • Install it by running the container in bash/zsh mode
  • Modify the Dockerfile so that it's installed during building - you'll have to rebuild the container after that.
  • Run base camera node in our container and RTABMap separately on host/ in a separate container (see the launch file on what parameters/topic names need to be changed when running separately).

Building

Clone the repository and inside it run (it matters on which branch you are on):
Command Line
1docker build --build-arg USE_RVIZ=1 -t depthai-ros .
If you find out that you run out of RAM during building, you can also set BUILD_SEQUENTIAL=1 to build packages one at a time, it should take longer, but use less RAM.RUN_RVIZ arg means rviz will be installed inside docker. If you want to run it you need to also execute following command (you'll have to do it again after restarting your PC):
Command Line
1xhost +local:docker
Then you can run your image in following way:
Command Line
1docker run -it -v /dev/:/dev/ --privileged -e DISPLAY -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix depthai-ros
will run an interactive docker session. You can also try:
Command Line
1docker run -it -v /dev/:/dev/ --privileged -e DISPLAY -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix depthai-ros roslaunch depthai_examples stereo_inertial_node.launch.py
to run a launch file of your choice.NOTE ROS2 Humble docker image uses Cyclone as RMW implementation.

Running docker image on ROS1

Command Line
1docker run -it -v /dev/:/dev/ --privileged -e DISPLAY -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix depthai_ros roslaunch depthai_examples stereo_inertial_node.launch
Will only start stereo_inertial_node launch file (you can try different commands).

Running docker image on ROS2

Command Line
1docker run -it -v /dev/:/dev/ --privileged -e DISPLAY -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix depthai_ros ros2 launch depthai_examples stereo_inertial_node.launch.py