sawClaronMicronTracker

This SAW component contains code for interfacing with the Claronav (aka Claron) Micron Tracker

• Linux
• Micron Tracker with FireWire BumbleBee2 (2 cameras)

The ros folder contains code for a ROS node that interfaces with the sawClaronMicronTracker component and publishes the 3D transformations of each tracked tool.

Links

• License: http://github.com/jhu-cisst/cisst/blob/master/license.txt
• JHU-LCSR software: http://jhu-lcsr.github.io/software/

Dependencies

• Micron Tracker SDK
• cisst libraries: https://github.com/jhu-cisst/cisst
• Qt for user interface
• ROS (optional)

Notes

• If you use PointGrey's utilities (flycap, tryclops) to test the cameras, make sure you unplug/replug the cameras before using the Micron Tracker examples or sawClaronMicronTracker. It seems that the PointGrey's programs change the cameras configuration in a way that is not compatible with the Micron Tracker SDK.
• On Linux 64 bits OSs, make sure _LINUX64 is defined before including MTC.h (this is done in CMakeLists.txt for sawClaronMicronTracker)
• On Linux, if you're tempted to compile and run the examples provided with the SDK and don't want to use NetBeans, you can compile using the command lines:
  • Example NetBeansProjects/MTSimpleDemoC: g++ -D_LINUX64 SimpleDemoC.cpp -L. -lMTC -ldc1394 -lraw1394 -lpthread -lm -lvnl -lvnl_algo (you will first have to copy the files MTC.h and libMTC.a in this folder)
  • Example NetBeansProjects/MTDemoCPP: g++ -D_LINUX64 *.cpp -L. -lfltk -lMTC -ldc1394 -lraw1394 -lpthread -lm -lvnl -lvnl_algo -lGL -lfltk_gl (you will first have to copy the files MTC.h and libMTC.a in this folder)
  • For both examples, you can ignore the lib*1394.a provided along libMTC.a, the OS provided shared libraries work fine (at least on Ubuntu 16.04)

ROS/Catkin build tools

This is by far the simplest solution to compile and run the sawClaronMicronTracker examples on Linux. See how to build cisst with ROS/Catkin tools on the cisst wiki: https://github.com/jhu-cisst/cisst/wiki/Compiling-cisst-and-SAW-with-CMake (Make sure you go to the ROS build instructions).

When compiling the sawClaronMicronTracker code, you will need to specify where to find the Micron Tracker SDK. Do a first catkin build, this build will skip the sawClaronMicronTracker because the directory containing the SDK is not defined. To define it, use ccmake in a shell/terminal that has all the ROS environment variables defined (DO NOT USE cmake-gui, for some reasons, it ignores the environment variables) on the build directory for the SAW Micron Tracker component. For example:

adeguet1@lcsr-qla:~/catkin_ws$ ccmake build_release/saw_claron_micron_tracker

In the command above, the ROS workspace is ~/catkin_ws and the build tree is build_release. You might have devel or devel_debug depending on your workspace configuration.

Once in CMake, locate ClaronMicronTracker_INCLUDE_DIR and make it point to the directory containing the file MTC.h. For example, if you're compiling 64 bits binaries, ~/MicronTracker3.7.2.3_Linux_Release/Dist/Dist_x64. Hit configure once and the variable ClaronMicronTracker_MTC_LIBRARY should have been found automatically.

Don't forget to hit "Generate" before quitting CMake. You should now be able to build using catkin build --force-cmake. The option --force-cmake is required to force CMake to run for all packages that depends on the sawClaronMicronTracker package.

Running the examples

ROS example

Go to the folder where you have your XML configuration file. For example:

roscd saw_claron_micron_tracker/../examples/

Then start the ROS node with the -x option to specify the XML configuration file:

rosrun micron_tracker_ros micron_tracker -x configClaronMicronTracker.xml

You will likely have to edit the main XML configuration file to update the directories where your calibration files are located.

If the tracker is properly configured and connected, you can click on the "Track" button to start tracking. At that point, you can use rostopic list to find which data is published and rostopic echo to visualize it.