A visual, web-based interface for examining the ROS graph.
- See all the nodes, topics, services, and parameters.
- Click on one to see what other nodes, topics, or services they are connected to.
- See topic and service types.
- Add/edit/delete parameters.
Tested on Indigo, but likely works with newer ROS distros.
ROS Explorer is a simple webpage, which you can serve from the www
directory however you like, such as with python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8595 .
You must be running a websocket server beforehand: roslaunch rosbridge_server rosbridge_websocket.launch
.
We also provide two launch files for convenience.
roslaunch ros_explorer ros_explorer.launch
: Runs a Python server from thewww
directory and opens ROS Explorer in a web browser. To use this, you needxdg-open
andpython -m SimpleHTTPServer
. The website will be served on http://localhost:8595.roslaunch ros_explorer ros_explorer_websocket.launch
: Same as above but also runs a websocket server.
- By default, the websocket URL is determined from the host the webpage is being served from (e.g.,
localhost
,robot.university.edu
). - You can scroll horizontally to view names that have been cut off by holding Shift while scrolling.
- Press Ctrl+F to search for a name.
ROS Explorer is built with Polymer.
Install Node.js using nvm if you don't already have it:
- Install nvm
nvm install node
Install the Polymer CLI if you don't already have it:
npm install -g polymer-cli
Download the frontend dependencies:
cd frontend
bower update
Run a local development server:
polymer serve
- Visit http://localhost:8081 in a web browser.
ROS Explorer works with RWS.