@BrandMetis-Width
Also this might be of interst to you - https://github.com/facontidavide/Bonxai

Not yet ROS integrated - but could be an excellent match.
Core implemented in < 1000 lines of code too.

Hi there - is there somewhere to track the progress of the Voxl work? Or could you provide an update. After much debate finally got sign off on a UAV purchase. The FLIR integration is somewhat key - but wanted to see when this might come?

That's absolutely amazing! I like it a lot and makes a good deal of sense - thanks for the input on the UAV selection.
Much appreciated.

@Alex-Gardner

Hi Alex - that's very helpful.

Since we're using Unity (via ROS Bridge > Unity OR ROS > Server Special Sauce > Unity) we're not wedded to ROS - but rather the generated output.
Since you need a tool to convert Odom / PCL data / Vox data into something instantiable.

Would it be possible to have a little more info / or any confirmed aspects between the VoxBlox specification/output - and what gets generated via VoxBlox currently.
We already have to "treat" the data a bit and apply some systems to it. I'd love to try and steal a march on this with my dev team so any of the "known knowns" would be helpful ( ). We're targeting October for a POC - even if that's just the output (rather than an E2E system).

If you're moving towards a native / ModalAi - VoxBlox Fork - especially if its tailored to an embedded system i'd love to see if we could access even that current VoxBlox Bag data. Since we're really only concerned with the output (and we get what we're given as it were) with a view that in the intervening months - this work will be released and I gather the native implementation of the optional sensors is the same.

Given our hop back from Octomap - based on this performance scale. - https://voxblox.readthedocs.io/en/latest/pages/Performance.html#runtime-comparison-to-octomap
Have you hit a throttle yet on the size / ray length based on say the https://www.modalai.com/collections/development-drones?
Are there any early indicators around the early "real-time" limitations. Given an indoor / scanning range constrained use case.

Its easy for us to up the HZ rate on the playback - but the sensor processing is where we've had issues with speed before?

It would also be very helpful to know if based on the above - you recommend a specific model lof development UAV. I saw you have a pre-order model - is there a timescale for this too? Also based on the assumption that a TOF / Stereo is still the principal ViO input - will the Vox Update be applied backwards - ie allow us to move from an existing dev drone to upgrade. We are looking a lot at acquiring a https://www.modalai.com/collections/robots/products/seeker?variant=39435414994995

My CEO has asked me to assemble some whole life costs - so unit + Sensors + Software engineering time. I wonder if you can point me on this.

Thanks for the very helpful answers! Also helping me look smart with my bosses
Happy to take this to another medium is needs be / mNDA etc.

@BrandMetis-Width

What I'm trying to ascertain is whether you are already generating equivalent to this on the UAV - as per the above-linked video (but not necessarily the Octomap specifically - but as a PCL cloud / occupancy cloud that can be defined?

E.g. http://wiki.ros.org/octomap_server

octomap_point_cloud_centers (sensor_msgs/PointCloud2)
The centers of all occupied voxels as point cloud, useful for visualization. Note that this will have gaps as the points have no volumetric size and OctoMap voxels can have different resolutions! Use the MarkerArray topic instead.

map (up to fuerte) / projected_map (since fuerte) (nav_msgs/OccupancyGrid)
Downprojected 2D occupancy map from the 3D map. Be sure to remap this topic if you have another 2D map server running. New / changed in octomap_mapping 0.4.4: The topic is now projected_map by default to avoid collisions with static 2D maps

@Alex-Gardner
https://youtu.be/FpGJ77xcb9w?t=21

So this looks like it's publishing a 3D map (TOF or Stereo).

We've previously been using ROS bag files from here: https://fpv.ifi.uzh.ch/datasets/ - running on the Qualcomm dataset - (screen attached).

Our understanding had been that you appear to be using Octomap / VoxBlox - here to display the PCL output? https://youtu.be/v9hG6LZdmHM?t=12

"All of the SLAM algorithms shown in this video are running on board the VOXL. The algorithms employed are a combination of ROS, OMPL, and Qualcomm's VIO."

Our hope was that we would be able to expose that 3D mapping layer (which appears to be at a 5cm ish layer.
From here we wanted to then tinker with this via some of our own systems to go from the Voxel engine into Unity where we can perform a myriad of other tasks.

The basic setup for the POC is:

UAV > Onboard SLAM > ROS Node (UAV) > ROS Node Receiver > Local / Server Reciever side > Unity.

For the evaluation now we want to go:

ROS Bag file (Odom, PCL / Map output) > Local Server > Unity.)

Happy to organise a quick conversation if that's unclear? If that's something you could assist with - since for our part we're an end consumer of this data.

Thanks

John

Hello,

I'm evaluating the ROS application of the VOXL output in and Via ROS.
I'd really like to see a ROS Bag file that has the VOXL topics for the mapping so I can evaluate.

Is this something you could provide or post to Git please?

Thanks

John