That node works like a charm, thank you so much!

Thanks for the answer, yes I already looked into the code. I was just wondering why the servers timestamp differs from the system timestamp. But then I will change the node accordingly.

Hey,
I noticed that the timestamps in the ros message header are always relative to boot time. Even if I synchronized the system time with the internet time or via chrony and restarted the services (dfs-server, voxl-vision-px4). Can I somehow get the system timestamps in my message? This is essential when being part of a larger ros network.

If it is intended like that, the best way would probably to replace the stamp with some rostime in the voxl node or is there some preferred way?

Thanks

Hi,
I tried the voxl-cam for the first time and all seems to be working fine except that px4 is not getting into position mode.

voxl-inspect-qvio prints reasonable poses, I can see the Odometry topic in QGC with 30 hz with x,y values not zero.

My EKF2_AID_MASK is 280 and with the same parameters and the voxl flight-deck I managed to start in position mode without GPS attached.

Problem seems to be that I cannot get values in LOCAL_POSITION_NED and nothing is being output on uorb top vehicle_visual_odometry in a nuttx console.

I made a cable to connect the pixhawk4 and the voxlcam, which is twice as long as in the old setup. The voxl-vision-px4 systemd service suggests that UART is connected, but maybe there could be some issue in sending the data?

Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks!

I had the same issue. Updating the voxl_mpa_to_ros package resolved it for me:

opkg update
opkg install voxl-nodes 

Hi @Chad-Sweet,
even though this is not public (yet?), I setup a docker running open-vins. It runs without problems but I keep getting fast divergent behavior. Do you happen to have a launch file / parameter settings for open-vins with good parameter estimates for the flight-deck platform? I am not sure if my I set the extrinsics correct. I thought it must be simply the inverse of the output of voxl-inspect-extrinsics as open-vins expect a T_C0toI matrix:

        <rosparam param="cam0_wh">[640, 480]</rosparam>
        <param name="cam0_is_fisheye" type="bool" value="true" />
        <rosparam param="cam0_k">[277.207560, 277.285144, 335.460288, 218.329580]</rosparam>
        <rosparam param="cam0_d">[-0.002486, 0.006832, -0.006556, 0.001300]</rosparam>
        <rosparam param="T_C0toI">
            [
                0.0, 1.0,  0.0, -0.015,
                -0.70711,  0.0, 0.70711, 0.00283,
                0.70711,  0.0,  0.70711, -0.0212,
                0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0
            ]
        </rosparam>

Another possible reason would be badly calibrated imu noise values. A reference file would be really helpful.
Thanks!

Good news, I didn't know that Apriltags are already supported, maybe the docs should be updated.
I updated and all streams are working simultaneously in the new architecture. Thanks.

Hi,
I am trying to publish some stereo output from the flight deck via ros with running voxl_vision_px4 in the background.
As stated in your docs I tried yocto:~# roslaunch voxl_cam_ros stereo.launch is_cam_master:=false but the launch always fails.

ERROR: The requested frame_id(0) does not exist in the queue.
[ERROR] [1627501325.921901556]: GetImageData() Unable to get Frame data for id: 0 rc: -2
[stereo/stereo_nodelet_manager-2] process has died [pid 5056, exit code -11, cmd /opt/ros/indigo/lib/nodelet/nodelet manager __name:=stereo_nodelet_manager __log:=/home/root/.ros/log/e264a974-efdb-11eb-b918-d80f995591f7/stereo-stereo_nodelet_manager-2.log].

I think my id's are correct, if I stop voxl-vision-px4.service and set is_cam_master to true it works. It also works if I choose the stereo_merged.launch launchfile, even with voxl-vision-px4 in the background. Other combinations (hires, tracking) work as well so I am wondering if there is a technical limitation on this specific combination or is this supposed to work. I am still on version 2.3 as I need the Apriltag support.

Thanks!

Thank you Travis!

I made another cable today and it was recognized as usb3 device. I guess the quality of the first cable was too bad in the first place or I did a bad job switching the channels.

However, until now I did not manage to create a robust connection. The driver behaves wierd and especially in the docker container I was not able to use the bandwidth. This is probably usb-driver or device related so I will try to play with the kernel parameters.

Anyhow, in theory it now works, so thanks a lot! (Also for the writeup, probably others can benefit from that.)

I tried it with swapped SSRX/TX as you posted in the pinout graphic but unfortunately it is still detected as usb2 device. Any other thoughts? Do I have to adjust some config or should it work out of the box after swapping? Maybe the cable quality or my wiring skills are not good enough, I will try it again with another cable.

Thank you so much for the graphic and the table! I will see what I can do to rearrange an existing cable. Even "small" cables are hard to fit into the voxl mounted on the flight deck, so it is probably easier with a custom cable than with a "large and bulky" one.