Skip to content

visualization.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
156 lines (107 loc) · 4.73 KB

visualization.md

File metadata and controls

156 lines (107 loc) · 4.73 KB

Viewer Backends

Dimos supports three visualization backends: rerun (default), foxglove, and none.

Quick Start

Choose your viewer via the CLI:

# Rerun native viewer (default) - dimos-viewer with built-in teleop + click-to-navigate
dimos run unitree-go2

# Explicitly select the viewer backend:
dimos --viewer rerun run unitree-go2
dimos --viewer foxglove run unitree-go2
dimos --viewer none run unitree-go2

Control how the Rerun viewer opens with --rerun-open and --rerun-web:

# Open native desktop viewer (default)
dimos --rerun-open native run unitree-go2

# Open web viewer in browser
dimos --rerun-open web run unitree-go2

# Open both native and web
dimos --rerun-open both run unitree-go2

# No viewer (headless) — data still accessible via gRPC
dimos --rerun-open none run unitree-go2

# Serve the web viewer without auto-opening a browser
dimos --rerun-web --rerun-open native run unitree-go2

Viewer Modes Explained

Rerun Native (rerun, --rerun-open native) — Default

What you get:

  • dimos-viewer, a custom Dimensional fork of Rerun with built-in keyboard teleop and click-to-navigate
  • Native desktop application (opens automatically)
  • Better performance with larger maps/higher resolution
  • No browser or web server required

Rerun Web (rerun, --rerun-open web)

What you get:

  • Browser-based dashboard at http://localhost:7779
  • Rerun 3D viewer + command center sidebar in one page
  • Teleop controls and goal setting via the web UI
  • Works headless (no display required)

Foxglove (foxglove)

What you get:

  • Foxglove bridge on ws://localhost:8765
  • No Rerun (saves resources)
  • Better performance with larger maps/higher resolution
  • Open layout: assets/foxglove_dashboards/old/foxglove_unitree_lcm_dashboard.json

Rendering with Custom Blueprints

To enable visualization in your own blueprint, use vis_module:

from dimos.core.coordination.blueprints import autoconnect
from dimos.hardware.sensors.camera.module import CameraModule
from dimos.visualization.vis_module import vis_module

camera_demo = autoconnect(
    CameraModule.blueprint(),
    vis_module(viewer_backend=global_config.viewer),
)

Run the stack locally (this blocks until you stop the process):

from dimos.core.coordination.module_coordinator import ModuleCoordinator

if __name__ == "__main__":
    ModuleCoordinator.build(camera_demo).loop()

Every LCM stream, such as color_image (output by CameraModule), that uses a data type (like Image) that has a .to_rerun method will get rendered (rr.log) using the LCM topic as the rerun entity path. In other words: to render something, simply log it to a stream and it will automatically be available in rerun.

Performance Tuning

Symptom: Slow Map Updates

If you notice:

  • Robot appears to "walk across empty space"
  • Costmap updates lag behind the robot
  • Visualization stutters or freezes

This happens on lower-end hardware (NUC, older laptops) with large maps.

Increase Voxel Size

Edit dimos/robot/unitree/go2/blueprints/smart/unitree_go2.py:

# Before (high detail, slower on large maps)
voxel_mapper(voxel_size=0.05),  # 5cm voxels

# After (lower detail, 8x faster)
voxel_mapper(voxel_size=0.1),   # 10cm voxels

Trade-off:

  • Larger voxels = fewer voxels = faster updates
  • But slightly less detail in the map

Direct Visualization from a Module

If you want to log data to Rerun directly from inside a module (e.g. for debugging or one-off visualizations), use rerun_init instead of calling rr.init() yourself. It handles colormap registration and can optionally start a gRPC server so a viewer can connect.

import rerun as rr
from dimos.visualization.rerun.init import rerun_init

# Basic init (no gRPC server — use when RerunBridgeModule is already running)
rerun_init()
rr.log("debug/my_points", rr.Points3D(positions=[[1, 2, 3]]))

# Start a gRPC server so you can connect a viewer
rerun_init(start_grpc=True)
# Then connect with: dimos-viewer --connect rerun+http://127.0.0.1:9877/proxy

# Custom gRPC config
rerun_init(
    start_grpc=True,
    grpc_config={
        "connect_url": "rerun+http://127.0.0.1:9999/proxy",
        "server_memory_limit": "4GB",
    },
)

When a RerunBridgeModule is already part of your blueprint, you typically don't need start_grpc — just call rerun_init() and log directly with rr.log(). The data will appear in the existing viewer.

How to use Rerun on dev (and the TF/entity nuances)

Rerun on dev is module-driven: modules decide what to log, and Blueprint.build() sets up the shared viewer + default layout.