simulation_groundtruth

The groundtruth ROS package enables other ROS nodes to access information about the current road.

Packages and Modules

• simulation.src.simulation_groundtruth.src.groundtruth package

GroundtruthNode

The simulation.src.simulation_groundtruth.src.groundtruth.node has access to the current road. It uses this information not only to provide access to the roads groundtruth but also render the road in Gazebo.

Groundtruth

The simulation.src.simulation_groundtruth.src.groundtruth.node provides a number of ROS services through which the groundtruth can be accessed by other ROS nodes.

Note

The node can be launched with:

roslaunch simulation_groundtruth groundtruth_node.launch road:={NAME_OF_ROAD}

Parameters to modify the road and other properties can be found in param/groundtruth/default.yaml

When started with the name of a road as a parameter the node uses the simulation.utils.road to load a list of all road sections. The list of road sections is used to initialize a simulation.src.simulation_groundtruth.src.groundtruth.groundtruth object. The groundtruth object can generate ROS msgs for specific requests (e.g. given a section id, return all obstacles). When receiving a request on a ROS service, the groundtruth node passes the request to its groundtruth object and wraps the result in a service response object.

Renderer

Creating and displaying roads in Gazebo is an important part of the simulation. The simulation.src.simulation_groundtruth.src.groundtruth.renderer.Renderer is started as a part of the simulation.src.simulation_groundtruth.src.groundtruth.node.GroundtruthNode.

The road is drawn onto the ground as an image. I.e. all road lines are just an image that is displayed in Gazebo. However, because roads can be very large, it is better to split up the road into equally sized simulation.utils.road.renderer.tile.Tile.

Additionally, there are some optimizations:

1. Only tiles with visible sections of the road are created

2. A road is rendered only once. If it is opened again, without modifying the road file, the previously rendered tiles are reused.

Obstacles and traffic signs must be created as well. After the renderer has created it’s ground plane, simulation.src.simulation_groundtruth.src.groundtruth.object_controller.ObjectController spawns all obstacles and traffic signs.

Putting the pieces together; these are the steps taken to create and populate the Gazebo world:

1. Import the road from simulation/models/env_db/<ROAD_NAME>.py,

2. check results from previous renderings are available, otherwise

3. distribute the road onto multiple equally sized tiles on the ground,

4. draw each tile and save the results to a file,

5. spawn the tiles in Gazebo, and

6. spawn obstacles and traffic signs with the ObjectController.

GroundtruthMockNode

The simulation.src.simulation_groundtruth.groundtruth.test.mock_node is a subclass of simulation.src.simulation_groundtruth.src.groundtruth.node providing the groundtruth of a number of simple roads.

Note

The node can be launched with:

roslaunch simulation_groundtruth groundtruth_mock_node.launch

Parameters to modify the road and other properties can be found in simulation/src/simulation_groundtruth/param/groundtruth_mock/default.yaml.

LabelCameraNode

The simulation.src.simulation_groundtruth.src.label_camera.node combines the car’s position with the road’s groundtruth to generate labels in the form of bounding boxes for the camera’s images.

Note

The node can be launched with:

roslaunch simulation_groundtruth label_camera_node.launch

Parameters and other properties can be found in simulation/src/simulation_groundtruth/param/label_camera/default.yaml.