NatNet ROS driver

Streams rigid bodies from OptiTrack Motive into ROS, using the NatNet protocol.

This is the IE Robotics & AI Lab fork of L2S-lab/natnet_ros_cpp, with fixes for Motive 3.x:

• FORK_CHANGELOG.md: every change and the issue it fixes
• BEHAVIOUR_CHANGES.md: what works differently from upstream

Branch	For
ros1 (this one)	ROS 1 Noetic
ros2	ROS 2 (tested on Galactic)
main	unchanged upstream

Tested with Motive 3.5, NatNet SDK 4.4, ROS Noetic and Ubuntu 20.04: 120 Hz per body at about 4% of one CPU core.

Install

sudo apt install -y ros-noetic-tf2* wget
cd ~/catkin_ws/src
git clone -b ros1 https://github.com/IERoboticsAILab/natnet_ros_cpp
cd ..
catkin_make -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
source devel/setup.bash

The first build downloads the NatNet SDK into deps/NatNetSDK, so it needs internet.

Already have the original repo? Delete its old SDK, then rebuild as above:

rm -rf ~/catkin_ws/src/natnet_ros_cpp/deps/NatNetSDK/lib ~/catkin_ws/src/natnet_ros_cpp/deps/NatNetSDK/include

Motive settings

In Motive, open the Streaming panel:

• NatNet: Enable on
• Local Interface: the Motive PC's IP on the network the robots use
• Transmission Type: Unicast or Multicast (must match serverType below)
• Rigid Bodies: on
• Up Axis: Z

Allow NatNet through the Motive PC's firewall (UDP ports 1510 and 1511).

Run

roslaunch natnet_ros_cpp natnet_ros.launch serverIP:=<motive-ip> clientIP:=<this-pc-ip> serverType:=unicast

Each rigid body is published as geometry_msgs/PoseStamped on /natnet_ros/<body-name>/pose, and as a TF frame <body-name> under world. A body Motive is not tracking is not published.

There is also a GUI: roslaunch natnet_ros_cpp gui_natnet_ros.launch

Options

Pass these as name:=value to roslaunch.

Option	Default	What it does
serverIP		IP of the Motive PC
clientIP		IP of the PC running this driver
serverType	multicast	unicast or multicast, same as in Motive
globalFrame	world	Frame the poses are in
pub_rigid_body	true	Publish rigid body poses and TF
pub_untracked_rigid_body	false	Keep publishing a body's last pose while Motive is not tracking it
pub_rigid_body_marker	false	Publish each body's markers on /natnet_ros/<body-name>/marker#/pose
pub_individual_marker	false	Track single markers (see below)
pub_pointcloud	false	Publish all markers as one sensor_msgs/PointCloud
remove_latency	false	Stamp messages with the camera exposure time instead of the arrival time
respawn	false	Restart the driver 5 s after it exits (useful when it runs as a service)
log_frames, log_latencies, log_internals	false	Print debug information

Tracking a single marker

A single marker can be published as a pose with fixed orientation:

1. Copy config/initiate.yaml, then add the marker's name and starting position (the file explains each field). log_frames:=true prints marker positions if you need to find it.
2. Launch with pub_individual_marker:=true conf_file:=<your-file>.yaml.

Credits

Original driver by L2S-lab. If you use it in a publication, please cite hal-04150950.