Hi, I'd consider it useful to make a plugin interface available within the map_dispatcher that gives access to the map. Implementing this interface, users could then create and load their custom plugins to retrieve information based on map data (or even update the map). We (Christian Dornhege, a few others and me) implemented an example of a similar system for a modified octomap_server at the ROS summer school in Graz earlier this year. We implemented a small proof of concept for sensor coverage mapping based on octomap, keeping track of the geometry seen by cameras (Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwbZegYgxzc). To do so efficiently we added the following plugin interface for coverage_octomap_server: https://code.google.com/p/rescue-ros-pkg/source/browse/trunk/coverage_mapping/coverage_octomap_server/include/octomap_server/CoverageOctomapServerPlugin.h The coverage sensor updater plugin (as an example) then implements this interface: https://code.google.com/p/rescue-ros-pkg/source/browse/trunk/coverage_mapping/coverage_sensor_updater_plugin/src/coverage_sensor_updater_plugin.h This gives the plugin full access to the the map and also allows to easily customize the number, types and parameters of plugins to load via launch files. An example yaml file looks like this: https://code.google.com/p/rescue-ros-pkg/source/browse/trunk/coverage_mapping/coverage_octomap_server/params/sensor_params.yaml Another example illustrating the advantages of this approach even better is probably the lookup of a single distance (e.g. raycast) into the map, or any other operation that is cheap, provided one has access to the map data. If the map_dispatcher does not provide the desired functionality, some other node has to retrieve a copy of the complete map, only to do this simple and cheap operation. Using a plugin interface like described before, one just has to implement a plugin that provides the requested functionality via a service server, making things much more efficient and IMHO less cumbersome. Most other functionality proposed for the REP could then of course also be implemented using plugins, making the map_dispatcher completely reconfigurable (which one might or might not want). Anyways, I just wanted to share the idea and put it up for discussion. regards, Stefan 2012/10/26 Stéphane Magnenat : > Hello, > > It would be nice to hear some feedback from the potential users of the > mapper nodes. People doing semantic mapping, object recognition, etc, what > do you need? I feel that we have a fairly good idea of the requirements for > mapping itself, but not enough information on the downstream use of maps. > > Cheers, > > > Stéphane > > -- > Dr Stéphane Magnenat > http://stephane.magnenat.net > _______________________________________________ > ros-users mailing list > ros-users@code.ros.org > https://code.ros.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-users