Apollo Cyber RT framework comes with a collection of useful tools for daily development, including one visualization tool cyber_visualizer and two command line tools cyber_monitor and cyber_recorder.
*Note: apollo docker environment is required to use the tools, please follow apollo wiki to enter docker*
All the tools from Apollo Cyber RT rely on Apollo Cyber RT library, so you must source the setup.bash file for environment setup before using any Apollo Cyber RT tools, shown as below:
- After launching cyber_visualizer, you will see the following interface:
- When data flow through channels in Apollo Cyber RT, the list of all channels are displayed under `ChannelNames` as seen in the figure below. For example, you can use the record tool(cyber_recorder) of Apollo Cyber RT to replay data from another terminal, then `cyber_visualizer` will receive information of all active channels(from replay data) and display it.
- By clicking on options in toolbar, you can enable reference grid, display point clouds, add images, or display multiple camera's data at the same time. If you have `Show Grid` option enabled, you can set the color of the grid by double-clicking the `Color` item of the `Grid` list below `ChannelNames`. The default color is gray. You can also edit the value of `Cellcount` to adjust the number of cells in the grid.
As for a point cloud or an image, you can select the source channel through its `ChannelName` sub-item, and `Action` sub-item to play or stop the data from the corresponding channel.
As shown in figure below, three cameras' channel data on the buttom sections and one point cloud channel data on the top section are displayed simultaneously.
- To adjust the virtual camera in the 3D point cloud scene, you can right click on the point cloud display section. A dialog box will pop up as shown in figure below.
The point cloud scene supports two types of cameras: Free and Target.(select Type from pop up dialog above)
- **Free type Camera**: For this type of camera in the point cloud scene, you can change the pose of the camera by holding down either left or right mouse button and move it. To change the pitch of camera, you can scroll the mouse wheel.
- **Target type Camera**: For this type of camera in the point cloud scene, to change the camera's viewing angle, you can hold down the left mouse button and then move it. To change the distance of the camera to the observed point (the default observation point is the coordinate system origin (0, 0,0)), you can scroll the mouse wheel.
You can also modify the camera information directly in the dialog box to change the camera's observation status in the point cloud scene. And the "Step" item is the step value from the dialog box.
Place the mouse on the image of the camera channel, you can double-click the left button to highlight the corresponding data channel on the left menu bar. Right click on the image to bring up menu for deleting the camera channel.
Play and Pause buttons: when clicking the `Play` button, all channels will be showed. While when clicking the `Pause` button, all channels will stop showing on the tool.
## Cyber_monitor
### Install and run
The command line tool `cyber_monitor` provides a clear view of the list of real time channel information Apollo Cyber RT in the terminal.
After launching the command line tool, you will notice it is similar to cyber_visualizer. It automatically collects the information of all the channels through the topology and displays them in two columns (channel name, channel data type).
The default display for channel information is in red. However, if there is data flowing through the a channel, the corresponding line of the channel is displayed in green. As shown in the image below:
### Interacting with cyber_monitor
#### Common commands
```
ESC | q key ---- Exit
Backspace ---- Back
h | H ---- Show help page
```
#### Common command for topology and channel
```
PageDown | Ctrl+d --- Next
PageUp | Ctrl+u --- Previous
Up, down or w, s keys ---- Move the current highlight line up and down
Right arrow or d key ---- Enter highlight line, display highlighted line data in detail
Left arrow or a key ------ Return to the previous layer from the current
Enter key ----- Same as d key
```
#### Commands only for topology
```
f | F ----- Display frame rate
t | T ----- Display channel message type
Space ----- Close|Open channel (only valid for channels with data arrival; yellow color after channel is closed)
```
#### Commands only for channel
```
i | I ----- Display channel Reader and Writer information
b | B ------ Display channel message content
```
#### View the repeated data field in a channel
```
n | N ---- Repeat the next data in the domain
m | M ---- Repeat one data on the domain
```
## Cyber_recorder
`cyber_recorder` is a record/playback tool provided by Apollo Cyber RT. It provides many useful functions, including recording a record file, playing back a record file, splitting a record file, checking the information of record file and etc.
# How to create and run a new component in Apollo Cyber RT
Apollo Cyber RT framework is built based on the concept of component. As a basic building bolock of Apollo Cyber RT framework, each component contains a specific algorithm module which process a set of data inputs and generate a set of outputs.
In order to successfully create and launch a new compoent, there are four essential steps that need to happen:
- Set up the component file structure
- Implement the component class
- Set up the configuration files
- Launch the component
The example below demonstrates how to create a simple component, then build, run and watch the final output on screen. If you would like to explore more about Apollo Cyber RT, you can find a couple of examples showing how to use different functionalities of the framework under directory `/apollo/cyber/examples/`.
*Note: the example has to be run within apollo docker environment and it's compiled with Bazel.*
## Set up the component file structure
Please create the following files, assumed under the directory of `/apollo/cyber/examples/common_component_example/`:
- header file: common_component_example.h
- source file: common_component_example.cc
- build file: BUILD
- DAG dependency file: common.dag
- Launch file: common.launch
## Implement the component class
### Implement component header file
To implement `common_component_example.h`:
- Inherit the Component class
- Define your own `Init` and `Proc` functions. Proc function needs to specify its input data types
- Register your component classes to be global by using
