cartographer_ros/docs/source/index.rst

.. Copyright 2016 The Cartographer Authors

.. Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
   you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
   You may obtain a copy of the License at

..      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

.. Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
   distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
   WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
   See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
   limitations under the License.

============================
Cartographer ROS Integration
============================

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 2

   configuration
   tuning
   ros_api
   assets_writer
   demos
   data
   faq

`Cartographer`_ is a system that provides real-time simultaneous localization
and mapping (`SLAM`_) in 2D and 3D across multiple platforms and sensor
configurations. This project provides Cartographer's ROS integration.

.. _Cartographer: https://github.com/googlecartographer/cartographer
.. _SLAM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_localization_and_mapping

System Requirements
===================

See Cartographer's :ref:`system requirements <cartographer:system-requirements>`.

The following `ROS distributions`_ are currently supported:

* Indigo
* Kinetic

.. _ROS distributions: http://wiki.ros.org/Distributions

Building & Installation
=======================

We recommend using `wstool <http://wiki.ros.org/wstool>`_ and `rosdep
<http://wiki.ros.org/rosdep>`_. For faster builds, we also recommend using
`Ninja <https://ninja-build.org>`_.

  .. code-block:: bash

    # Install wstool and rosdep.
    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install -y python-wstool python-rosdep ninja-build

    # Create a new workspace in 'catkin_ws'.
    mkdir catkin_ws
    cd catkin_ws
    wstool init src

    # Merge the cartographer_ros.rosinstall file and fetch code for dependencies.
    wstool merge -t src https://raw.githubusercontent.com/googlecartographer/cartographer_ros/master/cartographer_ros.rosinstall
    wstool update -t src

    # Install proto3.
    src/cartographer/scripts/install_proto3.sh

    # Install deb dependencies.
    # The command 'sudo rosdep init' will print an error if you have already
    # executed it since installing ROS. This error can be ignored.
    sudo rosdep init
    rosdep update
    rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src --rosdistro=${ROS_DISTRO} -y

    # Build and install.
    catkin_make_isolated --install --use-ninja
    source install_isolated/setup.bash

Running the demos
=================

Now that Cartographer and Cartographer's ROS integration are installed,
download the example bags (e.g. 2D and 3D backpack collections of the
`Deutsches Museum <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsches_Museum>`_) to a
known location, in this case ``~/Downloads``, and use ``roslaunch`` to bring up
the demo:

  .. code-block:: bash

    # Download the 2D backpack example bag.
    wget -P ~/Downloads https://storage.googleapis.com/cartographer-public-data/bags/backpack_2d/cartographer_paper_deutsches_museum.bag

    # Launch the 2D backpack demo.
    roslaunch cartographer_ros demo_backpack_2d.launch bag_filename:=${HOME}/Downloads/cartographer_paper_deutsches_museum.bag

    # Download the 3D backpack example bag.
    wget -P ~/Downloads https://storage.googleapis.com/cartographer-public-data/bags/backpack_3d/b3-2016-04-05-14-14-00.bag

    # Launch the 3D backpack demo.
    roslaunch cartographer_ros demo_backpack_3d.launch bag_filename:=${HOME}/Downloads/b3-2016-04-05-14-14-00.bag

The launch files will bring up ``roscore`` and ``rviz`` automatically.
See :doc:`demos` for additional demos including localization and various robots.