| Note: This tutorial assumes that you have completed the previous tutorials: ROS tutorials. |
How to Use a SpaceNavigator with the spacenav_node
Description: This tutorial is an introduction to using the 3DConnexion SpaceNavigator connected to a desktop. After reading this, you should be able to bring up the spacenav_node and display the data.Keywords: spacenavigator, 3DConnexion, joystick, driver
Tutorial Level: BEGINNER
Next Tutorial: Writing a Teleoperation Node for the SpaceNavigator
Contents
Compiling
Start by getting the dependencies and compiling the driver.
$ rosdep install spacenav_node $ rosmake spacenav_node
Plugged In
Make sure that your SpaceNavigator is plugged into the USB port.
Start the Spacenav Driver
$ roscd spacenav/spacenav_svn/spacenavd $ sudo ./spacenavd -d -usb
The -d option causes the driver to run in the foreground so that you can Ctrl-C the driver later. Without -d, the driver would launch as a daemon and you would have to use the kill command to kill it.
You will see the blue light of the spacenavigator turn on, and you should see something similar to:
Spacenav daemon svn-r87 failed to open config file /etc/spnavrc: No such file or directory. using defaults. using device: /dev/input/event8 device name: 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator
Starting a roscore
For the spacenav_node to work properly, a core must be running. In a new terminal:
$ roscore
Running the spacenav_node
In another new terminal, run the imu_node:
rosrun spacenav_node spacenav_node
Viewing the data
The spacenav_node publishes four topics:
rostopic list
You will see something similar to:
/spacenav/joy /spacenav/offset /spacenav/rot_offset /spacenav/twist
- /spacenav/joy - publishes the linear motion on a scale of [-1, 1]
- /spacenav/offset - publishes the unscaled linear motion
- /spacenav/rot_offset - publishes the unscaled rotational motion
- /spacenav/twist - publishes a twist of unscaled linear and rotational motion
To see that everything is working and data is being published to ROS, in a new terminal:
$ rostopic echo /spacenav/joy
You will see something similar to:
--- axes: (0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0) buttons: (0, 0) --- axes: (-0.021484375, 0.009765625, -0.009765625, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0) buttons: (0, 0) --- axes: (-0.005859375, 0.02734375, -0.009765625, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0) buttons: (0, 0) --- axes: (-0.005859375, 0.02734375, -0.009765625, -0.0234375, 0.0, 0.0) buttons: (0, 0)
Move the spacenavigator around to see the data change.