[ros-users] RFC: rviz on Android

Wed Apr 25 18:02:55 UTC 2012

Hey Chad, 

Do you have anything particular in mind w.r.t. changes to make ROS' network layer smarter? I've been playing with transport-level solutions for a while now to make ROS more robust under certain network configurations--but they only go so far (reducing latency at the cost of reliability, etc) so I'd love to hear other ideas.

Jeff

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ros-users-bounces at code.ros.org [mailto:ros-users-
> bounces at code.ros.org] On Behalf Of Jenkins, Odest Chadwicke
> Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2012 11:51 AM
> To: User discussions
> Subject: Re: [ros-users] RFC: rviz on Android
> 
> Very cool, Jeff!  Big ups.
> 
> Point clouds can be used effectively over rosbridge and the public internet.
> For example, the following video shows a PR2 in Palo Alto teleoperated by a
> user in Atlanta through a browser interface with Kinect RGBD data, two
> camera views, tfs, interactive markers, and
> more:
> 
>   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWG7em5cwWo
> 
> Admittedly, there were some special hacks needed to make this happen
> (compression, recasting of topics, etcs.).  However, such hacks could be
> generalized by rethinking ROS's pubsub mechanisms and topics to be smarter
> about data.
> 
> -Chad
> 
> 
> Message: 4
> Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 21:39:25 +0000
> From: "Jeff Rousseau <jrousseau at aptima.com>" <jrousseau at aptima.com>
> To: User discussions <ros-users at code.ros.org>
> Subject: Re: [ros-users] RFC: rviz on Android
> Message-ID:
>        <63F8A30DFF819946A566189F4E29A4896DAC7635 at exchange-
> ma.aad.aptima.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> Another approach, and one I've personally taken in some of our apps, is to
> build reusable UI components in HTML5 while keeping the lower-level data
> transfer code platform-specific.  For example the platform-specific code for
> our Android version uses rosjava just to push data from subscriber callbacks
> to populate the UI elements in an Android "WebView" component.  All view
> and business logic (majority of
> code) resides in the HTML5 side.  You lose the "everything runs in a
> browser", but still gain some code reuse.
> 
> This said, I still wouldn't advocate for a "one user interface to rule them all"
> type of thing.  A multi-touch tablet has different affordances than a desktop-
> PC with a mouse and keyboard.  Desktop UIs don't work on 8" tablets and vv.
> We simply use the common-denominator (using HTML5) approach to save
> development cycles on similar platforms (iOS, touch-PCs, Android, etc).
> 
> Just some things to consider
> Jeff
> 
> From: ros-users-bounces at code.ros.org
> [mailto:ros-users-bounces at code.ros.org] On Behalf Of Dave Hershberger
> Sent: Monday, April 23, 2012 5:06 PM
> To: User discussions
> Subject: Re: [ros-users] RFC: rviz on Android
> 
> I definitely like the idea of rviz-like functionality in a browser, where it is
> accessible from essentially any device.  One of the big use-cases though is
> Point Cloud data, which is already very high bandwidth, even in binary
> format.  If we sent that data in JSON format, it would expand about 4 times in
> size.  If there were support for binary data sent via websockets, rosbridge,
> etc, I would be thinking more seriously about it.
> 
> Dave
> On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 11:55 AM, Jeff Rousseau
> <jrousseau at aptima.com<mailto:jrousseau at aptima.com>>
> <jrousseau at aptima.com<mailto:jrousseau at aptima.com>> wrote:
> Dariush,
> 
> I think it really depends on what you want in your "android rviz"
> 
> We (at Aptima) have built some nice HTML5 UIs that wrap nicely into Android
> and iOS devices for controlling multiple robots.  So if you're looking for a
> replacement for something like the old nav_view functionality, we've found
> that HTML5 gives you some nice portability/code-reuse benefits.
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcATNhoJ3gg
> 
> I think of rviz as a "visual debugger" as well as an extremely basic navigation
> interface.  We cared more about building a UI for controlling the nav stack
> (queing waypoints, etc) so our use case might not be exactly the same.
> 
> Jeff
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From:
> > ros-users-bounces at code.ros.org<mailto:ros-users-
> bounces at code.ros.org>
> > [mailto:ros-users-<mailto:ros-users->
> > bounces at code.ros.org<mailto:bounces at code.ros.org>] On Behalf Of
> > Dariush Forouher
> > Sent: Monday, April 23, 2012 9:50 AM
> > To: User discussions
> > Subject: Re: [ros-users] RFC: rviz on Android
> >
> > Interesting, thanks for the many answers.
> >
> > I agree, building ROS apps for the browser is generally preferable for
> > portability reasons.  I don't know whether a fullfledged rviz is
> > doable inside the browser, however. wviz looks nice, though.
> >
> > @Dave: Working together on this sounds like a great idea. I was
> > thinking of handing this out as a student project as well. Once I've
> > found someone Ill contact you to see where we can contribute.
> >
> > cheers
> > Dariush
> >
> > Am 21.04.2012 04<tel:21.04.2012%2004>:06, schrieb Michael Carroll:
> > > I would certainly be interested in helping out.  I did a
> > > somewhat-iOS capable ROS bridge based on a 3rd party app for the
> > > iPhone and iPad, but I don't know that it's really a suitable long term
> solution.
> > >
> > > I, too, was considering something along the lines of rosbridge for a
> > > more fully-featured cross platform "app" (which could support any
> > > web enabled device).
> > >
> > > I think that if a "mobile ROS" is done, it should be with the goal
> > > to be as cross platform as possible.  I understand this becomes
> > > cumbersome when it comes to Rviz, but for most of the other
> > > interesting day-to-day information, widgets and text should cover it.
> > >
> > > ~mc
> > >
> > > On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 13:00, Dave Hershberger
> > > <hersh at willowgarage.com<mailto:hersh at willowgarage.com>
> <mailto:hersh at willowgarage.com<mailto:hersh at willowgarage.com>>>
> wrote:
> > >
> > >     er, I meant he's starting in May and I hope that in *June* we'll be
> > >     ready to farm out the Display subclass work.
> > >
> > >     Dave
> > >
> > >
> > >     On Fri, Apr 20, 2012 at 10:59 AM, Dave Hershberger
> > >     <hersh at willowgarage.com<mailto:hersh at willowgarage.com>
> <mailto:hersh at willowgarage.com<mailto:hersh at willowgarage.com>>>
> wrote:
> > >
> > >         That's great, thanks.  The project is supposed to start sometime
> > >         in May when my intern arrives.  Hopefully sometime in April
> > >         we'll be ready to start writing Display classes, which is the
> > >         place that looks easiest (to me) to farm out different pieces of
> > >         work.  All Displays are subclasses of the Display class and they
> > >         all use the same APIs do their various work, and there are about
> > >         20 of them.
> > >
> > >         It will also be great to have people testing and reporting bugs
> > >         in different use cases we might not see in-house.
> > >
> > >         Dave
> >
> > --
> > Institut f?r Technische Informatik / Universit?t zu L?beck
> > http://www.iti.uni-
> > luebeck.de/mitarbeiter/dariush-forouher-m-sc.html<http://luebeck.de/mi
> > tarbeiter/dariush-forouher-m-sc.html>
> 
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