Adding camera to Create3 simulator

[tgkell]

How are you connecting to your Create 3?

USB Ethernet (ROS 2)

Computer(s) Model(s) and Operating System(s)

Dell Latitude E5570, ubuntu-desktop 22.04, ROS2 Humble, Gazebo11, AWS small house world

Which version of ROS 2 is installed on your computer?

Humble

Which firmware version is installed on your robot?

H.2.6

Which RMW is your robot running?

FastRTPS

Does your robot have an assigned namespace? If so, please share.

no namespace

Is the robot connected to a network? If so, what is the network type?

create3 simulator

Are there multiple Create 3 robots connected to your network?

No

Is multicast enabled?

Yes

What is the Adapter Board's USB/BLE Toggle currently switched to?

USB

Describe your question.

Hello Create3 Community!

BACKGROUND: I have added a camera to the iRobot Create 3 simulation for classic Gazebo and the camera itself seems to work. In the Gazebo GUI I can see the projected image from the camera in the small house Gazebo world as the robot undocks and turns around. The projected image in Gazebo does look like what the camera should see in the AWS small house world.

PROBLEM: I'm trying to implement a ROS 2 topic to view the simulated images from a camera in ROS 2, without success.

OS: ubuntu-desktop 22.04

ROS 2: Humble

Gazebo: classic 11 installed with apt

AWS small house world

I am using libgazebo_ros_camera.so, and I have followed this guide: https://github.com/ros-simulation/gazebo_ros_pkgs/wiki/ROS-2-Migration:-Camera, trying to be careful with ROS1 vs ROS2, etc.

I cannot see any errors in the logs.

Here is the code I am using:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<robot xmlns:xacro="http://www.ros.org/wiki/xacro" >

    <joint name="camera_joint" type="fixed">
        <parent link="base_link"/>
        <child link="camera_link"/>
        <origin xyz="0 0 0.2" rpy="0 0 0"/>
    </joint>

    <link name="camera_link">
        <visual>
            <geometry>
                <box size="0.010 0.03 0.03"/>
            </geometry>
            <material name="red"/>
        </visual>
   </link>
    <material name="red">
        <color rgba="1 0 0 1"/>
    </material>
    <joint name="camera_optical_joint" type="fixed">
        <parent link="camera_link"/>
        <child link="camera_link_optical"/>
        <origin xyz="0 0 0" rpy="${-pi/2} 0 ${-pi/2}"/>
    </joint>

    <link name="camera_link_optical"></link>

    <gazebo reference="camera_link">
        <sensor type="camera" name="camera1">
            <pose> 0 0 0 0 0 0 </pose>
            <always_on>1</always_on>
            <visualize>1</visualize>
            <update_rate>10</update_rate>
            <camera name="head">
                <horizontal_fov>1.089</horizontal_fov>
                <image>
                    <format>R8G8B8</format>
                    <width>640</width>
                   <height>480</height>
                </image>
                <clip>
                    <near>0.05</near>
                    <far>8.0</far>
                </clip>
            </camera>
            <plugin name="camera_controller" filename="libgazebo_ros_camera.so">
                <ros>
                    <namespace>custom_ns</namespace>
                    <remapping>image_raw:=custom_img</remapping>
                    <remapping>camera_info:=custom_info</remapping>
                </ros>
                <camera_name>camera1</camera_name>
                <frame_name>camera_link_optical</frame_name>
                <hack_baseline>0.7</hack_baseline>
            </plugin>
        </sensor>
    </gazebo>
</robot>

When I do a ros2 topic list I do not see the custom_ns namespace, or any camera-related topics, but the camera does seem to be working in the Gazebo UI.

I'd appreciate any help. Cheers!

[tgkell]

Resolution:
It seems that libgazebo_ros_camera.so could not find libCameraPlugin.so
When I tried with GazeboSim(Fortress) there was an error message to that effect. With classic Gazebo, I didn't see the error, but it still didn't work. This fixed it for me:
source /usr/share/gazebo-11/setup.sh