viam-cartographer

(In)stability Notice

Warning This is an experimental feature. Stability is not guaranteed. Breaking changes are likely to occur, and occur often.

Overview

This repo wraps Cartographer as a modular resource so it is easily usable with the rest of Viam's ecosystem. Cartographer is a system that provides real-time Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (SLAM) in 2D and 3D across multiple platforms and sensor configurations.

Getting started

Stable AppImages

Install viam-cartographer:

• Linux aarch64:

  sudo curl -o /usr/local/bin/cartographer-module https://storage.googleapis.com/packages.viam.com/apps/slam-servers/cartographer-module-stable-aarch64.AppImage
  sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/cartographer-module

• Linux x86_64:

  sudo curl -o /usr/local/bin/cartographer-module https://storage.googleapis.com/packages.viam.com/apps/slam-servers/cartographer-module-stable-x86_64.AppImage
  sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/cartographer-module

• MacOS/Linux

  brew tap viamrobotics/brews && brew install cartographer-module

For next steps, see the Run Cartographer SLAM on your Robot with a LIDAR Tutorial.

Development

You can either install the latest AppImages for testing, or build the code from source.

Latest AppImages

You can install the latest AppImages using:

• Linux aarch64:

  sudo curl -o /usr/local/bin/cartographer-module https://storage.googleapis.com/packages.viam.com/apps/slam-servers/cartographer-module-latest-aarch64.AppImage
  sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/cartographer-module

• Linux x86_64:

  sudo curl -o /usr/local/bin/cartographer-module https://storage.googleapis.com/packages.viam.com/apps/slam-servers/cartographer-module-latest-x86_64.AppImage
  sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/cartographer-module

Build from source

Download

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/viamrobotics/viam-cartographer.git

If you happened to use git clone only, you won't see the cartographer folder and will need to fetch it:

git submodule update --init

(Optional) Using Canon Images

If desired, Viam's canon tool can be used to create a docker container to build arm64 or amd64 binaries of the SLAM server. The canon tool can be installed by running the following command:

go install github.com/viamrobotics/canon@latest

And then by running one of the following commands in the viam-cartographer repository to create the container:

canon -arch arm64

canon -arch amd64

These containers are set to persist between sessions via the persistent parameter in the .canon.yaml file located in the root of viam-cartographer. More details regarding the use of Viam's canon tool can be found here.

Setup, build, and run the binary

# Setup the gRPC files
make bufinstall && make buf 
# Install dependencies
make setup
# Build the binary
make build
# Install lua files
make install-lua-files
# Install the cartographer-module binary
make install
# Run the binary
cartographer-module

Linting

make lint-setup
make lint

Testing

make test

Working with submodules

Commit and push

1. Commit and push changes in the cartographer submodule first.
2. Commit and push changes in the viam-cartographer library last.

Or, alternatively:

1. Commit changes in the cartographer submodule
2. Commit changes in the main repo
3. Push all changes by running git push --recurse-submodules=on-demand

Changing branches in a submodule

When changing branches in a submodule, update .gitmodules, e.g., changing to a branch called kk/fix-install:

...
[submodule "viam-cartographer/cartographer"]
        path = viam-cartographer/cartographer
        url = git@github.com:kkufieta/cartographer.git
        branch=kk/fix-install

Commit & push the changes.

When pulling those changes, run the following:

git pull
git submodule update --init --recursive

Troubleshooting Build Failures

When building on MacOS and seeing errors related to protobuf such as

Undefined symbols for architecture arm64:
  "google::protobuf::internal::InternalMetadata::~InternalMetadata()", referenced from:
      google::protobuf::MessageLite::~MessageLite() in libviam-cartographer.a(common.pb.cc.o)
      google::protobuf::MessageLite::~MessageLite() in libviam-cartographer.a(slam.pb.cc.o)
      google::protobuf::MessageLite::~MessageLite() in libviam-cartographer.a(http.pb.cc.o)

or

/tmp/cartographer-module-20230421-29152-arkug3/viam-cartographer/../grpc/cpp/gen/google/api/http.pb.h:12:2: error: This file was generated by a newer version of protoc which is
/tmp/cartographer-module-20230421-29152-arkug3/viam-cartographer/../grpc/cpp/gen/google/api/http.pb.h:13:2: error: incompatible with your Protocol Buffer headers. Please update
/tmp/cartographer-module-20230421-29152-arkug3/viam-cartographer/../grpc/cpp/gen/google/api/http.pb.h:14:2: error: your headers.

Then it possible your brew installation is using the incorrect version of protobuf. To check if you are seeing this issue run

protoc --version

If your version is 3.20.3 then you may be having this error. To fix take the following steps

1. unlink protobuf@3

brew unlink protobuf@3

2. link normal protobuf

brew unlink protobuf && brew link protobuf

3. echo your path & confirm you are not manually pathing to protobuf@3. If you see protobuf@3 in your path, track down where that is being added to your path & remove it (try .zshrc / .bashrc)

echo $PATH

4. Create a new terminal window to get a clean shell state

5. Confirm you have a new version installed. The minimum version you should see on your Mac is 3.21.12

protoc --version

License

Copyright 2023 Viam Inc.

Apache 2.0 - See LICENSE file