Vizanti

Web Visualizer & Mission Planner for ROS

Vizanti is a web-based visualization and control tool developed for more convenient operation of outdoor robots running the Robot Operating System (ROS). The application attempts to replicate RViz's orthographic 2D view as closely as possible with a smartphone friendly interface. The second goal is to allow planning and executing movement and mission commands, i.e. goals and waypoints, with custom buttons and parameter reconfigure.

Installation

As a field tool, Vizanti is designed to operate just as well without internet access, and as such the intended way is to host it on a robot, with rosbridge autoconnecting to the host IP.

cd ~/catkin_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/MoffKalast/vizanti.git
cd ..
rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src
catkin_make

Or if rosdep fails for some reason, these are the main two deps:

sudo apt install ros-noetic-rosbridge-suite python3-flask

Flask and Jinja2 are used for templating, rosbridge is required for socket communication.

Run

roslaunch vizanti server.launch

The web app can be accessed at http://<host_ip>:5000. Client settings are automatically saved in localStorage. The satelite imagery renderer also uses the indexedDB to store tiles for offline use (note that this is IP specific). By default the rosbridge instance also occupies port 5001.

If you're using a mobile device connected to a robot's hotspot that doesn't have internet access, make sure to turn off mobile data. This will prevent Android from sending packets to the wrong gateway.