gazebo_ros_retina_camera

A Gazebo ROS Plugin for the Retina Framework.

Gazebo ROS Retina Plugin

This package provides a Gazebo ROS Camera interface to the Retina framework implemented at the University of Granada by Pablo Martínez-Cañada et al. [1][2] has been integrated in the NRP [3].

Install

The path to the Retina framework directory must be available in the RETINA_INSTALL_DIR environment variable.

Clone this package into your Gazebo ROS Packages workspace and rebuild.

Usage

This plugin can be used as a drop-in replacement for normal Gazebo camera plugins. Both, the Gazebo ROS retina plugin and the CameraPlugin use the Gazebo CameraSensor internally.

The following SDF snippet shows an example usage:

 <sensor name='camera' type='camera'>
   <camera name='retina'>
     <horizontal_fov>1.047</horizontal_fov>
     <image>
       <width>320</width>
       <height>240</height>
     </image>
     <clip>
       <near>0.1</near>
       <far>100</far>
     </clip>
   </camera>
   <plugin name="RetinaCameraPlugin" filename="libgazebo_ros_retina_camera.so">
     <retinaScriptPath>my_retina_script.py</retinaScriptPath>
     <cameraName>image_raw</cameraName>
     <alwaysOn>true</alwaysOn>
     <updateRate>10</updateRate>
     <robotNamespace>/</robotNamespace>
   </plugin>
 </sensor>

The parameters robotNamespace, cameraName (default: "events") result in "$robotNamespace/$cameraName/" as the identifier of the topic on which the untouched camera images are published.

For each module $ModuleName defined in the retina configuration script, specified with the retinaScriptPath element, the output is published on two topics:

• .../retina/$ModuleName of type Image: As an R8G8B8 image in false colors.
• .../retina/$ModuleName/data of type Float64MultiArray: as a multi array of doubles (raw data)

The only required element for the plugin to work is retinaScriptPath.

Please Note

• When used in the NeuroRobotics Platform, the retinaScriptPath element is overridden by the configuration tag in the BIBI configuration file. Thus, it is recommended to comment the element out.
  e.g. <!--retinaScriptPath>my_retina_script.py</retinaScriptPath-->

• width and height values must match the ones in the retina config script.

References

[1] Martínez-Cañada, P., Morillas, C., Pino, B., Ros, E., Pelayo, F. A Computational Framework for Realistic Retina Modeling. In International Journal of Neural Systems. Accepted for publication.
[2] COREM
[3] retina