Published March 31, 2015 by

How To: Tracking ArUco markers using a USB Webcam and ROS

For my research I needed to setup ROS to use ArUco so that I could track these ArUco markers placed randomly in the environment and localize my robot.

Assuming that you have your catkin workspace setup, here are the steps:

1.  $cd ~/catkin_ws/src/

2. $git clone https://github.com/pal-robotics/aruco_ros.git

3. $cd ..

4. $catkin_make install

5. $sudo apt-get install ros-indigo-usb-cam

6. $source install/setup.bash

7. $cd src/aruco_ros/aruco_ros/launch/

Now you need to modify the single.launch file so that you remap the image and camera info to the topics published by usb_cam node.

<launch>

<arg name=”markerId” default=”582″/>
<arg name=”markerSize” default=”0.034″/> <!– in m –>
<arg name=”eye” default=”left”/>
<arg name=”marker_frame” default=”aruco_marker_frame”/>
<arg name=”ref_frame” default=””/> <!– leave empty and the pose will be published wrt param parent_name –>
<node pkg=”aruco_ros” type=”single” name=”aruco_single”>
<remap from=”/camera_info” to=”/usb_cam/camera_info” />
<remap from=”/image” to=”/usb_cam/image_raw” />
<param name=”image_is_rectified” value=”True”/>
<param name=”marker_size” value=”$(arg markerSize)”/>
<param name=”marker_id” value=”$(arg markerId)”/>
<param name=”reference_frame” value=”$(arg ref_frame)”/> <!– frame in which the marker pose will be refered –>
<param name=”camera_frame” value=”stereo_gazebo_$(arg eye)_camera_optical_frame”/>
<param name=”marker_frame” value=”$(arg marker_frame)” />
</node>

</launch>

8. Open 4 terminal windows:

Terminal 1: $roscore

Terminal 2: $roslaunch usb_cam-stream.launch

First paste this into a new file named usb_cam-stream.launch:

<launch>
<node name=”usb_cam” pkg=”usb_cam” type=”usb_cam_node” output=”screen” >
<param name=”video_device” value=”/dev/video0″ />
<param name=”image_width” value=”640″ />
<param name=”image_height” value=”480″ />
<param name=”pixel_format” value=”mjpeg” />
<param name=”camera_frame_id” value=”usb_cam” />
<param name=”io_method” value=”mmap”/>
</node>
</launch>

Terminal 3:

$cd ~/catkin_ws/src/aruco_ros/aruco_ros/launch/

$roslaunch single.launch

Terminal 4: $rosrun image_view image_view image:=/aruco_single/result

sauravagarwal

sauravagarwal

Research Tutorial

aruco augmented reality markers robot operating system robotics ros ros indigo webcam

20 Comments

  1. Aankita said:

    Hi Saurav,

    I would like to know, after launching the single board detector, which topic should I subscribe to get the orientation and the ID of the marker.

    September 9, 2015
    • sauravagarwal said:

      Hi Aankita,

      As far as I know, you should subscribe to: /aruco_marker_publisher/markers to detect individual landmarks.

      Exammple Code from my git repo https://github.com/sauravag/FIRM-OMPL/blob/dev/include/SpaceInformation/ROSSpaceInformation.h

      arucoSubscriber_ = nHandle_.subscribe("/aruco_marker_publisher/markers", 1, &ROSSpaceInformation::arucoListenerCallback, this);

      It may be possible that the single board detector publishes to a different topic, in that case run the detector and then run,

      $ rostopic list

      to get the list of active topics. You should see something related to aruco, once you get the name of the topic you can do,

      $ rostopic info

      to get information about the topic.

      September 11, 2015
  2. Patrik said:

    Hi Saurav!

    I would like to know what topic, if any, I should echo to print out the pose of the marker? I tried to figure out which it was by rostopic list and rostopic info but was unable to do so.

    Cheers

    March 3, 2016
    • sauravagarwal said:

      I used /aruco_marker_publisher/markers
      In case you don’t see any Aruco topic in your rostopic list then probably the node isn’t running correctly

      March 3, 2016
  4. Daniele said:

    Hi Saurav,
    If I wanted to use 3 markers, how should I edit the double.launch file?
    I need to have 3 topics for marker positions: pose, pose2 and pose 3

    How should i do it?
    Thanks so much

    May 10, 2017
    • sauravagarwal said:

      You should not need different topics for each marker. Aruco publishes a markerlist topic. Check that out. The markerlist is a vector of markers with their ID, pose etc.

      May 12, 2017
  5. Jack Writer said:

    Hi; I am trying out your method but it always shows this error message.

    [aruco_single-1] process has died [pid 9092, exit code -11, cmd /home/user/catkin_ws/devel/lib/aruco_ros/single /camera_info:=/usb_cam/camera_info /image:=/usb_cam/image_raw __name:=aruco_single __log:=/home/user/.ros/log/92a97332-36ea-11e7-9d4b-b8ca3aa3d65b/aruco_single-1.log].
    log file: /home/user/.ros/log/92a97332-36ea-11e7-9d4b-b8ca3aa3d65b/aruco_single-1*.log

    Do you have any clue about it?

    Kind regards

    May 12, 2017
    • sauravagarwal said:

      You will have to open the log file at the path shown in the error message and search that for where the error occurred. Hard to asses error source without the log file.

      May 12, 2017
      • Blake said:

        Hi, I’m encountering a similar error to that above. It seems to be some issue with establishing a connection, but I’m having trouble solving the problem:

        [rosmaster.threadpool][ERROR] 2017-06-27 10:16:17,925: Traceback (most recent call last):
        File “/opt/ros/indigo/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/rosmaster/threadpool.py”, line 218, in run
        result = cmd(*args)
        File “/opt/ros/indigo/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/rosmaster/master_api.py”, line 208, in publisher_update_task
        xmlrpcapi(api).publisherUpdate(‘/master’, topic, pub_uris)
        File “/usr/lib/python2.7/xmlrpclib.py”, line 1233, in __call__
        return self.__send(self.__name, args)
        File “/usr/lib/python2.7/xmlrpclib.py”, line 1587, in __request
        verbose=self.__verbose
        File “/usr/lib/python2.7/xmlrpclib.py”, line 1273, in request
        return self.single_request(host, handler, request_body, verbose)
        File “/usr/lib/python2.7/xmlrpclib.py”, line 1301, in single_request
        self.send_content(h, request_body)
        File “/usr/lib/python2.7/xmlrpclib.py”, line 1448, in send_content
        connection.endheaders(request_body)
        File “/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py”, line 1013, in endheaders
        self._send_output(message_body)
        File “/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py”, line 864, in _send_output
        self.send(msg)
        File “/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py”, line 826, in send
        self.connect()
        File “/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py”, line 807, in connect
        self.timeout, self.source_address)
        File “/usr/lib/python2.7/socket.py”, line 571, in create_connection
        raise err
        error: [Errno 111] Connection refused

        June 27, 2017
        • sauravagarwal said:

          Have you set ROS_MASTER_URI or ROS_IP or ROS_HOSTNAME? You will need these to be set in order for a distributed setup to work.

          June 27, 2017
          • Blake said:

            Here is my working environment, am I missing something?

            ROS_ROOT=/opt/ros/indigo/share/ros
            ROS_PACKAGE_PATH=/home/terra/blake_ws/src:/opt/ros/indigo/share:/opt/ros/indigo/stacks
            ROS_MASTER_URI=http://localhost:11311
            ROSLISP_PACKAGE_DIRECTORIES=/home/terra/blake_ws/devel/share/common-lisp
            ROS_DISTRO=indigo
            ROS_ETC_DIR=/opt/ros/indigo/etc/ros

            June 27, 2017
          • sauravagarwal said:

            set your ROS_IP to your IP on the network.

            June 27, 2017
          • Blake said:

            Setting ROS_IP to the local IP address results in the same error as before:

            ROS_ROOT=/opt/ros/indigo/share/ros
            ROS_PACKAGE_PATH=/home/terra/blake_ws/src:/opt/ros/indigo/share:/opt/ros/indigo/stacks
            ROS_MASTER_URI=http://localhost:11311
            ROSLISP_PACKAGE_DIRECTORIES=/home/terra/blake_ws/devel/share/common-lisp
            ROS_DISTRO=indigo
            ROS_IP=127.0.0.1
            ROS_ETC_DIR=/opt/ros/indigo/etc/ros

            June 27, 2017
          • Blake said:

            I was never able to determine the problem but a fresh ROS install fixed it. Thanks.

            June 27, 2017
          • sauravagarwal said:

            Glad its fixed, good luck with your work and thanks for sharing the fix 🙂

            June 30, 2017
  7. liyi said:

    Hi Saurav!
    i use the usb_cam,and rostopic echo /aruco_single/pose,but have a error:
    pose:
    position:
    x: nan
    y: nan
    z: nan
    orientation:
    x: 0.0
    y: 0.707106781187
    z: 0.707106781187
    w: 0.0
    while i use the xtion camera,it is not problem.
    How should i do it?
    Thanks so much

    April 18, 2018
    • shahab said:

      calibrate your camera it will be fix

      September 24, 2018
  8. nana said:

    Hello,
    I have this error.. any help please..

    … logging to /home/ubuntu/.ros/log/6ff3382a-180f-11e9-b85d-0800275e924a/roslaunch-ubuntu-VirtualBox-13675.log
    Checking log directory for disk usage. This may take awhile.
    Press Ctrl-C to interrupt
    Done checking log file disk usage. Usage is <1GB.

    started roslaunch server http://ubuntu-VirtualBox:34163/

    SUMMARY
    ========

    PARAMETERS
    * /aruco_single/camera_frame: stereo_gazebo_lef…
    * /aruco_single/corner_refinement: LINES
    * /aruco_single/image_is_rectified: True
    * /aruco_single/marker_frame: aruco_marker_frame
    * /aruco_single/marker_id: 207
    * /aruco_single/marker_size: 0.062
    * /aruco_single/reference_frame:
    * /rosdistro: kinetic
    * /rosversion: 1.12.14

    NODES
    /
    aruco_single (aruco_ros/single)

    ROS_MASTER_URI=http://localhost:11311

    ERROR: cannot launch node of type [aruco_ros/single]: aruco_ros
    ROS path [0]=/opt/ros/kinetic/share/ros
    ROS path [1]=/opt/ros/kinetic/share
    No processes to monitor
    shutting down processing monitor…
    … shutting down processing monitor complete

    January 14, 2019

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