Scheduled Bagfiles Capturer

Robotics and Autonomous Systems Group, Research Engineering Facility, Research Infrastructure Queensland University of Technology

Introduction

The scheduled bagfiles capturer is a ROS 1 (noetic) application node that captures bag files according to a schedule. It is designed to operate autonomously and remotely, and to work with another application that uploads the captured bag files to a cloud storage (such as Google Drive)

The schdule, which is specified in an Excel file, can be refreshed autonomously by pulling the file from a Google Drive or by uploading the file through a web application. Other system settings such as the ros topics to be recorded are also refreshed in the same way.

The application can operate in web-based mode or headless mode.

In the web-based mode, users can interact with the application hrough a web interface. The interface provides a console for monitoring the application status and various web pages for updating the schedule and other bagfile capturing parameters.

In the headless mode, users cannot directly interact with the application. The schedule can be updated via editing a publicly link-shared Excel file on the Google Drive. In addition, the application will write event messages to a daily log file.

Software Requirements and Installation Guide

This application is a package based on ROS 1 (noetic) and Python 3.8 (or above). It uses a number of third party Python modules as specified in requirements.txt.

Step-by-step Installation

1. Create a catkin workspace or use an existing one.

mkdir -p ~/catkin_ws/src
cd ~/catkin_ws/src

2. Clone this repository under the src directory.

git clone git@github.com:REF-RAS/bagfiles_capturer.git

3. Build this package.

rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -r -y --rosdistro noetic
source /opt/ros/noetic/setup.bash
catkin_make -DPYTHON_EXECUTABLE=/usr/bin/python3

4. Start the application. The application should start even though some of the configuration parameters need changing.

cd ~/catkin_ws
source devel/setup.bash
rosrun bagfiles_capturer run.py

5. Test the application using a web browser. Point the web browser to http://0.0.0.0:8060, which is the default URL for the web interface. The following web interface should appear.

The Configuration yaml File

The configuration file config/capturer_config.yaml must be edited so that the application can run properly. The following goes through every parameter.

capturer.mode: web   # web or headless

Determines whether the bagfiles capturer provides a web interface (web) or no interface (headless). Other values will cause an error.

capturer.web.host: 0.0.0.0
capturer.web.port: 8060
capturer.web.debug.mode: True       # whether the web interface provides debugging information
capturer.web.launch_browser: False  # whether to launch the web browser when the application starts

Determines the host IP and the port number of the web interface. The True value for the debug.mode instructs the web interface to provide debugging information. Changing from False to True for capturer.web.launch_browser tells the application to launch the web browser and point it at the given host IP and port number.

capturer.web.auth: True   # Authentication required if web mode

Determines if user/password authentication is enabled. Note that for the authentication to be really enabled, at least one account has to be added to the application through the system settings Excel file.

capturer.pull.gdrive.fileid: null  # null if no pull setting
capturer.pull.cron.schedule: '0 * * * *'

Determines if the application regularly pull the system settings Excel file from Google Drive. The key capturer.pull.gdrive.fileid refers to the file ID found in publicly shared URL link of a file. Assume that the system settins Excel file is already stored on the Google Drive. To obtain the File ID,

1. Bring up the pop-up menu for the Excel file.
2. Select Share to bring up the Share dialog window.
3. Under General Access, select Anyone with the link can view.
4. Click the Copy Link button.

The link URL should look something like the following

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=yyyyyyyyyyyy&rtpof=true&sd=true

The File ID is the part denoted by a sequence of x in the URL. Copy the sequence as the value for capturer.pull.gdrive.fileid.

Note that setting a null or other invalid values for capturer.pull.gdrive.fileid disables the autonomous pulling of the Excel file.

The key capturer.pull.cron.schedule specifies the schedule for pulling the system settings Excel file. The scheduling format is based on cron. Please visit the link for the details. For example, 0 * * * * specifies pulling the file when minute equals 0. Again, setting a null value disables the autonomous pulling of the Excel file.

# The default rostopics for bagfile capture
capturer.rostopics.default:
  - /armcam/infra1/image_rect_raw/compressed
  - /cuttercam/infra1/image_rect_raw/compressed

The key capturer.rostopics.default specifies one or more ROS topics to be captured in bagfiles.

# The output folder for captured bagfiles
capturer.filestore: /home/qcr/Insync/Bagfiles

The key capturer.filestore specifies the directory where the captured bagfiles are saved. This should normally be the directory that is synced with a cloud storage such as Google Drive.

The Commands

The following command will launch the bagfile capturer in the mode specified in the configuration file.

roslaunch bagfiles_capturer capture.launch

The mode can be specified in the command as follows, which will override the one in the configuration file.

roslaunch bagfiles_capturer capture.launch mode:=headless

The database can be reset from the command line. Use the following command to drop all database tables and re-create them.

rosrun bagfiles_capturer reset_database.py

The filestore is the folder where the captured bagfiles are stored. It may occur a lot of disk space after a while. The content can be cleared using the following command.

rosrun bagfiles_capturer clear_filestore.py

The reset_database.py and clear_filestore.py are interactive. To stop them asking for confirmation, add the command line argument -y or -yes.

The System Settings Excel File

The four worksheets of the Excel File recognized by the application include Schedule, Rostopics, and Accounts. Please refer to the sample file Settings.xlsx at the root folder of this repository.

The Schedule worksheet

This worksheet specifies the schedule of capturing bagfiles. Each row specifies one capture event and the worksheet comprises the following columns:

Header	Description	Format
Date	The date in yyyy/mm/dd format	Text (not Date/Time)
Time	The time in 24-hour HH:MM:ss format	Text (not Date/Time)
Duration	The length of capture time which is a number followed by a time unit (s, m, h). The default is seconds	Text
Folder	The sub-folder name under the filestore where the bagfile is stored.	Text
Prefix	The prefix of the bagfile name	Text

Remind that the data format for the date and time columns must be Plain Text.

An example of the schedule worksheet is given below.

Date	Time	Duration	Folder	Prefix
2024/4/30	21:40:00	10	Type_A
2024/5/2	12:15:00	2m	Type_B
2024/5/2	12:20:00	30		Test
2024/5/2	12:25:00	20		Test
2024/5/2	15:40:00	20	Type_A
2024/5/2	15:45:00	1m	Type_B	Long

The Rostopics worksheet

This worksheet specifies the ROS topics that are to be captured in bagfiles. The worksheet uses one column called Name where the ROS topic names are populated.

The Account worksheet

This worksheet specifies the user name and password for authentication to enter the web interface. Each row specifies one account and the worksheet comprises the following columns:

Header	Description	Format
User	The user ID	Text
Password	The password in plain text	Text
Name	The name of the user	Text
Email	The email of the user	Text

The Web Interface

The web interface comprises of the Console page, the Setup page, the Schedule page, the DB page and the Query page

The Console Page

• The top panel displays the application state, which can be READY (the application is waiting for scheduled event), CAPTURING (the application is capturing and saving to a bagfile), and PULL_CONFIG (the application is pulling the latest schedule document).
• The ROSTOPIC STATUS monitors if the topics are publishing (✅) or not publishing (❌).

The Setup Page

• The RESET DB TABLES panel provides a button to drop and re-create database tables.
• The CLEAR BAGFILES panel provides a button to remove old bag files (older than a given number of days).
• THe UPDATE ROSTOPICS panel enables editing of the ROS topic list to be captured in bagfiles.
• The UPDATE ACCOUNTS panel enables updating of the accounts table.

The Schedule Page

• This page lists the current schedule of bagfiles capturing.
• It provides a file upload functionality for updating the schedule.

The DB and the Query Pages

• These two pages are mainly for the dumping of the content of a database table.
• The Query page offers execution of SQL statements.
• The DB page lists the content of a database table.

Bagfiles Sync to a Cloud Drive

Due to the feature of scheduled capture of bagfiles, this application is suitable operating in a remote device. There is a need to upload the bagfiles stored locally to a more accessible location such as a cloud drive.

There are many options available. Depending on the platform, there are options such Google Drive, One Drive, Dropbox, etc.

Under the REF-RAS organization, there is a QUT developed google drive file uploader that operates as a one-way file sync. Access to the repo is subject to permission. The launch file capture_and_upload.launch is available for starting both the capturer and the uploader.

Developer

Dr Andrew Lui, Senior Research Engineer
Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Research Engineering Facility
Research Infrastructure
Queensland University of Technology

Latest update: May 2024