Access VOXL2 cameras on ROS2 within docker container

[Jeff Delaune]

Hello,

I need to access the VOXL2 cameras from a ROS2 node running within a docker container on the VOXL2.

While I am familiar with how to access these cameras in ROS1 in the native Ubuntu image using voxl-mpa-to-ros, I am facing two obstacles here:

1/ The "Qualcomm proprietary 32-bit libraries and services are not available in the Docker environment" (source: https://docs.modalai.com/docker-on-voxl/#running-a-docker-image-with-the-voxl-docker-tool)

2/ the voxl-mpa-to-ros command does not exist for ROS2 (source: https://forum.modalai.com/topic/1168/voxl2-mpa-to-ros2?_=1675704230453)

One possible work-around I thought of could be to:
1/ run voxl-mpa-to-ros in the native Ubuntu host environment to publish the MIPI camera streams in ROS1
2/ run a ROS1->2 bridge to publish the streams on the ROS2 network (e.g.: https://github.com/ros2/ros1_bridge)
3/ subscribe to the new ROS2 camera topics from the ROS2 node running in Docker.

Is this the approach you would recommend, or is there a simpler way to do this?

[Chad Sweet]

The pipes that voxl-camera-server publishes should be accessible in a Docker. You should be able to access them that way inside of a Docker. A voxl-mpa-to-ros2 service would be a good addition, we don't have that implemented yet.