ROS Release

[JimmyDaSilva]

As many of the users of this package think it's amazing, this should be released in ROS.
I know it can take quite some time but it would be worth it.

First thing to do: change the packages names. Names such as renderer, interface are too common and could be easily changed to simtrack_interface and simtrack_renderer

If you are interested, Dirk Thomas made a nice talk about releasing to ROS during ROSCon 2016:
https://vimeo.com/187705230

[karlpauwels]

Hey Jimmy,
I'm afraid that the CUDA-dependency will make things very complicated in terms of the build-farm requirements and also for generating Ubuntu packages. Are you aware of any official ROS-packages that depend on CUDA that could serve as an example?

[JimmyDaSilva]

Hi Karl,
Sorry but I don't think I do, and I don't think there is... You're right. Installation of NVIDIA graphics card drivers and CUDA can sometimes be tricky. So it would probably be hard to get something stable to the binaries.

Anyway, this is a great package that more people should be aware of. Maybe some experts could even try improving it. I think you should advertise it on the ROS Discourse page : https://discourse.ros.org/c/ros-projects

But please consider changing the package names to simtrack_PCK_NAME as it could conflict with others. Some other people also have a renderer package for instance because of bad naming.

Cheers,
Jimmy

[balloch]

Hey Karl,

Love this package as well, and if you want, I think the tutorial I wrote on installing CUDA alongside ROS for my lab works quite reliably, More reliably than the CUDA tutorials for alongside ROS at least. And then you just proceed with the libfreenect2 installation but ignoring all of the CUDA stuff. Check it out:
https://github.com/HLP-R/hlpr_perception/wiki/CUDA-Installation