heightmap_spawner

A ROS 2 package that converts occupancy grids from nav2_map_server into 3D heightmap models for use in Gazebo simulations.

Features

• Occupancy Grid Conversion: Converts 2D occupancy grid maps into heightmaps for 3D simulation.
• Image Processing: Includes median filtering and color inversion to improve map accuracy.
• Configurable Thresholds: Adjustable parameters to control the image-to-heightmap transformation.
• Gazebo Integration: Automatically spawns the processed heightmap in Gazebo (gz-sim).

Dependencies

• ROS 2: Required for running the package in a ROS environment.
• Gazebo (gz-sim): The simulation platform where the heightmap models are spawned.
• Gazebo Transport Library (gz-transport): Facilitates communication with Gazebo.
• OpenCV: Used for image processing tasks such as filtering and color inversion.
• nav2_map_server: Provides the occupancy grid maps to be converted.

Installation

1. Clone the repository into your ROS 2 workspace:

   git clone https://github.com/damanikjosh/heightmap_spawner.git

2. Install required dependencies using rosdep:

   rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -r -y

3. Build the workspace using colcon:

   colcon build

Usage

Launching the Example Map

Use the provided launch file to run the example map and see the heightmap spawner in action:

ros2 launch heightmap_spawner example.launch.py

Launching the Spawner Node

You can also launch the heightmap_spawner node directly using the spawner.launch.py file or by defining the node in your own launch files.

Node Arguments

Customize the behavior of the heightmap spawner using the following arguments:

Argument	Default Value	Description
save_path	/tmp	The directory where the processed heightmap image is saved.
height	0.5	The vertical height of the spawned heightmap in Gazebo.
use_median_filtering	true	Enables median filtering to reduce noise in the heightmap.
use_color_inverse	true	Inverts the colors of the image to adjust height scaling.
low_thresh	200	Lower threshold value for filtering the occupancy grid image.
high_thresh	255	Upper threshold value for filtering the occupancy grid image.

License

This package is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE.txt file for more details.