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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
Compiling
Start by getting the dependencies and compiling the driver.
$ sudo apt install spacenavd $ sudo apt install ros-indigo-spacenav-node
Plugged In
Make sure that your SpaceNavigator is plugged into the USB port.
Running the spacenav_node
$ roslaunch spacenav_node classic.launch
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.
