Force converter to be called when changing settings

[cadkin]

I'm not sure if it was documented anywhere, but it seems like the handler parameter for message converters was not getting called. I found a fix to that and decided to see about fixing the re-calling of the converter itself as well.

Small disclaimer: I am not a web developer, I mostly do C++. If something is wrong please let me know!

User-Facing Changes

• registerMessageConverter handler callback will now be called.
• Message converters should now be re-run when the associated settings change.

Description

Should close #503.

Checklist

• The web version was tested and it is running ok
• The desktop version was tested and it is running ok
• This change is covered by unit tests
• Files constants.ts, types.ts and *.style.ts have been checked and relevant code snippets have been relocated

[carolinabamorim]

Hi @cadkin thank you very much for your PR. we will review it and in case we have any questions we will comment here.
Thank you

[thomassedlmayer]

Hi @cadkin, I tried out your changes with our extension (asam-osi-converter) to give some feedback. We'd be very happy if this feature makes it to the release.

But I found some issues:

1. When playback is paused, all our settings are immediately applied to the 3d render (with exception, see 5).
2. For most settings this also works during playback.
3. But for two settings (toggle visualization of large triangle list primitives/lane network), it doesn't remove the objects from render when toggling Off during playback even though the deletions are generated and returned by the converter function. The objects just keep being rendered as the playback proceeds until clicking somewhere in the timeline. Note that this has worked before.
4. Toggling On works for all settings (with exception, see 5).
5. The following issue happens for all settings: When pausing after playback, toggling On or Off does only work after switching back and forth once. Then it works reliably during pause.

This gif shows (5)

I verified that (3) is not a bug in our extension: The following screenshot shows the moment of switching the toggle button for showPhysicalLanes to Off. In the console log there is the panel settings object and then the "proof" that deletions of these triangle list primitives are actually passed to lichtblick. In the 3d panel the objects (blue and red lines) are still visualized. When I click somewhere in the timeline, the objects disappear.

I guess, it's probably not an issue of this PR but rather an underlying issue in lichtblick? The converter is actually called as expected. Maybe that's something you could check before merging this, @carolinabamorim?

[carolinabamorim]

we will check it, thanks for the heads-up @thomassedlmayer

[cadkin]

Hey @thomassedlmayer, I appreciate you taking a look.

3. But for two settings (toggle visualization of large triangle list primitives/lane network), it doesn't remove the objects from render when toggling Off during playback even though the deletions are generated and returned by the converter function. The objects just keep being rendered as the playback proceeds until clicking somewhere in the timeline. Note that this has worked before.

I would hazard a guess that you're right, this does seem like an internal issue. I can't replicate it however; I looked though your extension and it seems like we are doing mostly the same things. The only meaningful difference I see is that we are converting a ROS2 message, were as you seem to be using an actual schema (osi3.SensorView). Not sure if this is handled differently internally, but might be worth a look.

5. The following issue happens for all settings: When pausing after playback, toggling On or Off does only work after switching back and forth once. Then it works reliably during pause.

Again, I cannot replicate this. See below for the behavior I observe:

out.mp4

Your use case is much more complicated than mine, but if it is useful I've pushed up a copy of our ROS2 message package + extension. Here's the most relevant code.

I'm not sure how helpful I can be, but if there is something I can do let me know.