rtabmap_ros

RTAB-Map's ROS package.

For more information, demos and tutorials about this package, visit rtabmap_ros page on ROS wiki.

For the RTAB-Map libraries and standalone application, visit RTAB-Map's home page or RTAB-Map's wiki.

Installation

ROS2 distribution

Under construction: see ros2 branch.

ROS distribution

RTAB-Map is released as binaries in the ROS distribution.

• Melodic

  $ sudo apt-get install ros-melodic-rtabmap-ros
  

• Lunar

  $ sudo apt-get install ros-lunar-rtabmap-ros
  

• Kinetic

  $ sudo apt-get install ros-kinetic-rtabmap-ros
  

• Jade

  $ sudo apt-get install ros-jade-rtabmap-ros
  

• Indigo

  $ sudo apt-get install ros-indigo-rtabmap-ros
  

  • For armhf architecture, ros-indigo-rtabmap-ros is not available. Install ros-indigo-rtabmap and build from source rtabmap_ros using the indigo-devel branch.

    $ cd catkin_ws
    $ git clone -b indigo-devel https://github.com/introlab/rtabmap_ros.git src/rtabmap_ros
    $ catkin_make -j1
    

• Hydro:

  $ sudo apt-get install ros-hydro-rtabmap-ros
  

  • Note that rtabmap_ros Hydro binaries are stuck at version 0.8.12. To use the latest version, see Build from source below.

When launching rtabmap_ros's nodes, if you have the error error while loading shared libraries..., add the next line at the end of your ~/.bashrc to fix it:

$ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/opt/ros/melodic/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu

Docker

• Go to docker directory for an example.

Build from source

This section shows how to install RTAB-Map ros-pkg on ROS Hydro/Indigo/Jade/Kinetic/Lunar/Melodic (Catkin build). RTAB-Map works only with the PCL >=1.7, which is the default version installed with ROS Hydro/Indigo/Jade/Kinetic/Lunar/Melodic (Fuerte and Groovy are not supported).

• The next instructions assume that you have set up your ROS workspace using this tutorial. I will use melodic prefix for convenience, but it should work with Hydro, Indigo, Jade, Kinetic and Lunar. The workspace path is ~/catkin_ws and your ~/.bashrc contains:

  $ source /opt/ros/melodic/setup.bash
  $ source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash

0. Required dependencies

   • The easiest way to get all them (Qt, PCL, VTK, OpenCV, ...) is to install/uninstall rtabmap binaries:

     $ sudo apt-get install ros-melodic-rtabmap ros-melodic-rtabmap-ros
     $ sudo apt-get remove ros-melodic-rtabmap ros-melodic-rtabmap-ros

1. Optional dependencies

   • If you want SURF/SIFT on Indigo/Jade (Hydro has already SIFT/SURF), you have to build OpenCV from source to have access to nonfree module. Install it in /usr/local (default) and the rtabmap library should link with it instead of the one installed in ROS.

     • On Indigo/Jade, I recommend to use latest 2.4 version (2.4.11) and build it from source following these instructions. RTAB-Map can build with OpenCV3+xfeatures2d module, but rtabmap_ros package will have libraries conflict as cv-bridge is depending on OpenCV2. If you want OpenCV3, you should build ros vision-opencv package yourself (and all ros packages depending on it) so it can link on OpenCV3.
     • On Kinetic/Lunar/Melodic, I recommend to use OpenCV3+xfeatures2d module already installed by ROS. You can also install OpenCV2, but rtabmap_ros package will have libraries conflict as cv-bridge is depending on OpenCV3. Thus if you want OpenCV2 on Kinetic/Lunar/Melodic, you should build ros vision-opencv package yourself (and all ros packages depending on it) so it can link on OpenCV2.

   • g2o: Use directly the binaries ros-melodic-libg2o. However, this g2o version (c++03 branch) built from source may be faster than the binaries (install libsuitesparse-dev before building g2o) and would be required to avoid some crashes. To build RTAB-Map against latest official g2o version built from source, g2o should be built with -DBUILD_WITH_MARCH_NATIVE=OFF to avoid some segmentation faults caused by Eigen.

   • GTSAM: Follow installation instructions from here. RTAB-Map needs latest version from source, it will not build with 3.2.1. Set cmake variable GTSAM_USE_SYSTEM_EIGEN=ON to make sure the same Eigen version is used across all dependencies to avoid crashes.

     git clone https://bitbucket.org/gtborg/gtsam.git

2. Install RTAB-Map standalone libraries. Add -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=~/catkin_ws/devel to cmake command below if you want to install in your Catkin's devel folder without sudo. Do not clone in your Catkin workspace.

   $ cd ~
   $ git clone https://github.com/introlab/rtabmap.git rtabmap
   $ cd rtabmap/build
   $ cmake ..  [<---double dots included]
   $ make
   $ sudo make install

3. Install RTAB-Map ros-pkg in your src folder of your Catkin workspace.

   $ cd ~/catkin_ws
   $ git clone https://github.com/introlab/rtabmap_ros.git src/rtabmap_ros
   $ catkin_make -j1

   • Use catkin_make -j1 if compilation requires more RAM than you have (e.g., some files require up to ~1.8 GB to build).

Build from source for Nvidia Jetson with OpenCV 4 Tegra

To use rtabmap_ros on Jetson, you can follow the instructions above if you don't care if OpenCV is built for Tegra. However, if you want rtabmap to use OpenCV 4 Tegra, we must re-build vision_opencv stack from source too to avoid conflicts with vision_opencv stack binaries from ros (which are linked on a not optimized version of OpenCV). Here are the steps:

1. Install JetPack with OpenCV on the Jetson.

2. Do steps 1.2 and 1.3 from http://wiki.ros.org/kinetic/Installation/Ubuntu

3. Install non-opencv dependent ros packages:

   • sudo apt-get install ros-kinetic-ros-base ros-kinetic-image-transport ros-kinetic-tf ros-kinetic-tf-conversions ros-kinetic-eigen-conversions ros-kinetic-laser-geometry ros-kinetic-pcl-conversions ros-kinetic-pcl-ros ros-kinetic-move-base-msgs ros-kinetic-rviz ros-kinetic-octomap-ros ros-kinetic-move-base libhdf5-openmpi-dev libsuitesparse-dev

4. Do step 1.6 from http://wiki.ros.org/kinetic/Installation/Ubuntu

5. Create your catkin workspace

6. Optional: Install g2o and/or GTSAM dependencies as above (increase visual odometry and graph optimization accuracy).

7. To avoid libGL undefined errors:

   $ cd /usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/
   $ sudo ln -sf tegra/libGL.so libGL.so
   

8. To avoid libvtkproj4 errors:

   $ sudo ln -s /usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libvtkCommonCore-6.2.so /usr/lib/libvtkproj4.so
   $ sudo ln -s /usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libvtkCommonCore-6.2.so /usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libvtkproj4-6.2.so.6.2.0
   

9. Install RTAB-Map standalone libraries. Add -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=~/catkin_ws/devel to cmake command below if you want to install in your Catkin's devel folder without sudo. Do not clone in your Catkin workspace.

   $ cd ~
   $ git clone https://github.com/introlab/rtabmap.git rtabmap
   $ cd rtabmap/build
   $ cmake ..  [<---double dots included]
   $ make
   $ sudo make install

10. Clone vision_opencv, image_transport_plugins and rtabmap_ros packages in your catkin_ws:

 $ cd ~/catkin_ws
 $ git clone https://github.com/ros-perception/vision_opencv src/vision_opencv
 $ git clone https://github.com/ros-perception/image_transport_plugins.git src/image_transport_plugins
 $ git clone https://github.com/introlab/rtabmap_ros.git src/rtabmap_ros
 $ catkin_make -j2

Update to new version

###########
# rtabmap
###########
$ cd rtabmap
$ git pull origin master
$ cd build
$ make
$ make install
# Do "sudo make install" if you installed rtabmap in "/usr/local"

###########
# rtabmap_ros
###########
$ roscd rtabmap_ros
$ git pull origin master
$ roscd
$ cd ..
$ catkin_make -j1 --pkg rtabmap_ros