optitrack

ROS package developed by the Control Robotics Intelligence Group from the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. This package allows to receive in ROS the rigid bodies streamed by Motive 1.7.

The master branch is compatible with:

• ROS Indigo
• ROS Kinetic

Maintainer

Francisco Suárez-Ruiz

Our setup

• Optitrack with six Prime 17W cameras.
• Motive 1.7.5 running on Windows 7, 64 bits.
• ROS Kinetic (Ubuntu 16.04, 64 bits)

Documentation

• See the installation instructions below.
• Throughout the various files in this repository.

Install

The following instructions have been tested in Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial), 64 bits.

ROS Kinetic

Set-up your computer to accept software from packages.ros.org and set-up your keys following the steps described at http://wiki.ros.org/kinetic/Installation/Ubuntu

Now, install the ROS bare bones:

# Installation
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-wstool ros-kinetic-ros-base
# Initialize rosdep
sudo rosdep init
rosdep update

ROS Package installation

Install the python-optrix module:

pip install optirx --user

Go to your ROS working directory:

cd ~/catkin_ws/src

Clone this repository:

git clone git clone https://github.com/crigroup/optitrack.git

Install any missing dependencies using rosdep:

rosdep update
rosdep install --from-paths . --ignore-src -y

Now, compile your ROS workspace:

cd ~/catkin_ws && catkin_make

Testing the Installation

Make sure you always source the appropriate ROS setup file, e.g:

$ source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash

You might want to add that line to your ~/.bashrc

Try the following commands (one per terminal):

roslaunch optitrack optitrack_pipeline.launch iface:=eth1
rostopic echo /optitrack/rigid_bodies

Troubleshooting

NotImplementedError: Force plate data not supported

Check the version of your Motive SDK: go to Help -> About Motive... -> NatNet Streaming Module. It can be something like 2.7.0.0.

Then, in rigid_body_publisher.py change this line:

version = (2, 9, 0, 0) # the latest SDK version

To this:

version = (2, 7, 0, 0) # Our SDK version

Don't use the netgear router for your ROS network

You should have two independent networks:

• One for the Optitrack cameras + windows computer
• One for windows computer + ROS computer

This implies that your windows computer needs 2 network cards. Laptops usually have 2, one wired and one wireless.

The windows firewall isn't your friend

If your ROS network appears as Public in the windows computer, the streaming will be blocked by the firewall. You need to make this network Private (How to make a public network private windows?)

Wrong subnet mask

A mismatch between subnet masks could lead to errors. Use the same subnet mask in both computers. E.g: 255.255.255.0

Have you created the Rigid Bodies in Motive?

This driver has been only tested with Rigid Bodies. You can create them in Motive as follows: Select the markers -> Right click -> Rigid Body -> Create From Selected Markers

Is Motive streaming?

Set Multicast Interface field to the IP address of your ROS computer View -> Data Streaming -> Advanced Network Options -> Multicast Interface

Mutual ping

Check you can ping in both directions: windows computer <-> ROS computer

Still doesn't work

• We have Motive 1.7.5 running on Windows 7, 64 bits and sometimes we need to reset the local interface for the streaming to work. This seems to be a bug. The reset is done by changing other interface and then back to the interface you want to use: View -> Data Streaming -> Network Interface -> Local interface