8. ROS Releases

To upgrade an existing MultiSense SL, first download and build the latest ROS driver from GitHub. Detailed instructions on how to do this can be found in Installation.

The latest ROS driver is fully backwards-compatible with all older firmware releases.

If you are upgrading an existing ROS driver installation, make sure to remove previous builds before rebuilding:

Groovy, Hydro, & Indigo

 
cd PATH_TO_SOURCE/src/multisense
git pull
cd PATH_TO_SOURCE
rm -r build && rm -r devel
catkin_make

After building the latest ROS driver, your MultiSense SL can be field upgraded to latest firmware by downloading a firmware update file and issuing the following command from the ROS driver environment (assuming the IP address of your MultiSense SL is "10.66.171.21"):

rosrun multisense_lib MultiSenseUpdater 10.66.171.21 multisense_firmware_v3_3.slf

If the firmware update process is not allowed to complete successfully, your MultiSense SL will be left in a non-functional state. To avoid this:

  • Before running the update command, make sure to close all other software that communicates with the MultiSense (ROS nodes, utilities, etc.)

  • Ensure that the MultiSense unit is on an isolated network and has a stable power source.

  • Do not interrupt the update process once underway.

If the update fails to complete — do NOT power-cycle or power-off the MultiSense SL. Instead, remove all possible networking equipment between the update computer and the MultiSense SL and restart the firmware updating process.

Release 4.0.0

Date 2017-02-06

Driver Notes

  • Included xacro formats for all MultiSense cameras (SL, S7, S21) which allow easy standalone use and embedded use of the MultiSense URDF model in systems.

  • Added support and dynamic reconfigure interface for new Firmware Version 3.5 which allows a 4MP imagers to be windowed as 2MP and the window position to be adjusted.

  • Added support and dynamic reconfigure interface for adjustable transmit delay, a new feature of Firmware Version 3.5 feature

Document Notes

Updated documentation for new cropped 4MP mode, transmit delay, and xacro UDRFs.

Release 3.4.9

Date 2016-09-08

Driver Notes

  • Modified header file management to be consistent with ROS package conventions.

Document Notes

No Changes

Release 3.4.8

Date 2016-09-02

Driver Notes

  • Fixed compatibility issue with OpenCV 3.1.

Document Notes

No Changes

Release 3.4.7

Date 2016-03-04

Driver Notes

  • Add in support for MultiSense DeviceStatus messages.

  • Revised the cal_check utility to remove the MATLAB dependency.

Document Notes

  • Added information about the new DeviceStatus message to Status Message.

  • Remove MATLAB specific instructions for installing and using the SL cal_check utility.

Release 3.4.6

Date 2015-12-01

Driver Notes

  • Removed unused Boston Dynamics ATLAS texture maps.

Document Notes

No Changes

Release 3.4.5

Date 2015-10-20

Driver Notes

  • Changed the image encoding types from 8UC1/16UC1 to mono8/mono16.

Document Notes

No Changes

Release 3.4.4

Date 2015-06-22

Driver Notes

  • Adds an effort field to the joint states topic.

  • Adds support for a new topic /multisense/openni_depth which follows the OpenNI Raw depth format. This topic version uses less bandwidth than the traditional depth image and is able to be compressed with image transport.

Document Notes

Added documentation to Depth Camera section.

Release 3.4.3

Date 2015-02-13

Driver Notes

  • Fixed issue relating to point cloud size allocation that caused the first (and only the first) cloud to have invalid data.

  • Removed URDF and xacro dependency from multisense_description.

Document Notes

No Changes

Release 3.4.2

Date 2015-01-30

Driver Notes

  • Added launch_robot_state_publisher argument to multisense_bringup/multisense.launch.

  • Added geometry_msgs/Vector3Stamped publishers for accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer data.

  • Updated LibMultiSense.

Document Notes

Added documentation to IMU Topics section.

Release 3.4.1

Date 2014-12-30

Driver Notes

  • Populated K, R, D, and P matrices for all camera info topics.

  • Added a /multisense/depth/camera_info topic.

Document Notes

Updated camera_info topic descriptions with scale information.

Release 3.4

Date 2014-12-11

Driver Notes

  • Updated to LibMultiSense version 3.5.

  • Fixed camera_info publishing bug for non-standard cameras (BCAM, MultiSense M, ST21).

  • Added HDR option to dynamic reconfigure. Note this is an beta feature and HDR support and usage will change in the future. Turning on HDR may reduce the density of the returned 3D data, it should only be use in scene with high dynamic-range.

Document Notes

No Changes

Release 3.3.9

Date 2014-12-08

Driver Notes

Added optional circular and rectangular edge trimming to remove less-accurate readings from the FOV edge.

Document Notes

Added documentation on how to use edge trimming, see Parameters documentation for details on border_clip_type and border_clip_value.

Release 3.3.8

Date 2014-12-02

Driver Notes

  • Added stereo_msgs/DisparityImage publishing for both left and right disparity images.

  • Added latched default camera_info publishing for all image topics.

  • Updated rosbuild multisense_ros CMakeLists.txt to build color_laser_publisher.

Document Notes

Added documentation about the new DisparityImage topics, see Depth Camera API documentation.

Release 3.3.7

Date 2014-11-25

Driver Notes

Added support for the MultiSense Monocular camera.

Document Notes

No Changes

Release 3.3.6

Date 2014-11-10

Driver Notes

Added libturbojpeg dependency to multisense_ros.

Document Notes

No Changes

Release 3.3.5

Date 2014-11-03

Driver Notes

Added catkin installation rule for configureNetwork.sh script.

Document Notes

Added [install:hydro:binary] and [install:indigo:binary] documentation.

Release 3.3.4

Date 2014-10-31

Driver Notes

Added new /multisense/imu/imu_data topic of type sensor_msgs::Imu.

Document Notes

Added documentation for new IMU topic.

Release 3.3.3

Date 2014-10-24

Driver Notes

Adjusted CMakeLists.txt to resolve linker errors with Jenkins.

Document Notes

No Changes

Release 3.3.2

Date 2014-10-23

Driver Notes

  • Added laser_points2_color topic, a PointCloud2 where LIDAR ranges are colorized by the left camera.

  • Removed warning about LIDAR streaming frequency.

Document Notes

Added documentation for new color LIDAR topic.

Release 3.3.1

Date 2014-10-09

Driver Notes

  • Added new custom Stamped PPS topic that includes host time.

  • Fixed structure of data published to organized point cloud topic.

  • Fixed scale issue in depth image publishing.

  • Added broadcast option to Change IP Utility.

  • Removed SSE4/AVX compile flags due to issues on Intel Atom processors.

  • Added doxygen documentation to LibMultiSense source.

Document Notes

Release 3.3

Date 2014-09-25

Driver Notes

  • Added organized point cloud publishing.

  • Added joint_state messge to manage the MultiSense SL spindle transform.

  • Added default laser transform publishing to keep the laser TF tree valid even when there are no subscriptions to laser topics.

  • Added camera info topics for all image topics.

  • Added support for 16 bit mono images.

  • Added support for the thermal MultiSense ST21.

Document Notes

  • Added camera info topics for all images.

  • Added ROS Indigo installation instructions.

  • Added joint_states publishing for the laser spindle transform.

  • Added organized point cloud publishers.

  • Added sensor launch file configuration option.

Release 3.2

Date 2014-08-04

Driver Notes

  • Changed license of driver and C++ library from LGPL to BSD.

  • Fixed Jenkins linking issue with libpng.

  • Fixed bug in building using rosbuild under Groovy, Hydro, and Indigo.

  • Fixed bug that caused UDP traffic to continue after ROS node shutdown.

  • Fixed bug in disparity image publishing that sometimes caused color points clouds to not be published.

Document Notes

  • Added documentation about Image Histogram topic.

  • (SL Specific) Removed documentation about decrecated Joint States topic and added note about removal.

Release 3.1

Date 2014-05-10

Driver Notes

  • Added support for 3.1 firmware, including S21 product line.

  • Added support for catkin build system (Groovy and Hydro.)

  • (SL specific) Simplifed laser /tf publishing. Removed Joint States topic.

Document Notes

  • Added catkin instructions for Groovy and Hydro.

  • Updated MultiSense topic names to reflect the new namespaceing scheme.

  • (SL specific) Updated transform tree overview to reflect removal of KDL.

  • (SL specific) Updated the example transformation code to use TF.

Release 3.0_beta

Date 2014-02-14

Driver Notes

  • Added support for 3.0_beta firmware:

    • SGM (semi-global matching) hardware stereo core.

    • Hardware stereo post-filter support and tuning.

    • Support for non-square (2x binned) vertical resolutions.

    • Support for variable disparity levels (64, 128, and 256.)

    • Support for right-disparity (8-bit) and left stereo cost-map (8-bit) images. Please note that in the 3.0_beta release, these images have not been passed through the left-right-discrepancy and post- stereo filters.

  • Added colorized (rgb) point cloud topic (please note that the color image rectification is done on the host CPU, which may reduce the overall throughput of this topic compared to the monochrome version.)

  • Added configurable range and edge filtering to point cloud generation.

  • Added raw left-disparity image topic (16 bit.) Each LSB is 1/16th of a disparity.

Document Notes

  • Added notes and topics for the 3.0_beta firmware release.

  • Added software compatibility section.

Release 2.3

Date 2013-12-04

Driver Notes

  • Added support for firmware v2.3 (IMU and CMV4000 support.)

  • Added smart presentation of dynamic_reconfigure interfaces based off of hardware configuration and sensor firmware version.

  • Removed multisense_dashboard and multisense_diagnostics

  • Many small bugfixes and feature enhancements.

Document Notes

  • Removed dashboard and diagnostic sections.

  • Added MultiSenseUpdater documentation in place of FlashUtility.

  • Moved “Reconfigurable Parameters” to its own section.

  • Added IMU topic, command-line utility, and dynamic_reconfigure sections.

  • Added TF Tree overview.

  • Added IMU section.

Release 2.2

Date 2013-10-17

Driver Notes

Add check for firmware version 2.2 before enabling PPS output

Document Notes

  • Added note about PPS bug in version 2.1 firmware.

  • (SL Specific) Removed deprecation warning about /laser/points2 topic.

Release 2.1

Date 2013-09-23

Driver Notes

  • Added topic for publishing the sensor’s clock at the last PPS.

  • Added network-time-sync option to dynamic-reconfigure.

  • Corrected step size for color images (now display correctly with image_view.)

  • Corrected projection center in cached camera intrinsics.

  • Updated calibration check utility.

Document Notes

  • Added topic description and troubleshooting section for PPS.

  • Added section for the FlashUtility command line tool.

Release 2.0

Date 2013-07-09

Driver Notes

  • Added command-line utilities to configure sensor heads.

  • Updated ROS API to more closely match DRC Gazebo simulator.

  • Updated low-level communications and wire protocol to match MultiSense SL firmware Release 2.0.

  • Added raw_snapshot tool to multisense_ros.

  • Added calibration check program.

Document Notes

  • Added description of command-line utilities to configure sensor heads.

  • Updated ROS API documentation.

  • Updated low-level communications and wire protocol.

  • Added documentation for calibration check program.

  • Removed documentation for calibration check service.

  • General formatting and cleanup.

Release 1.3

Date 2013-05-23

Driver Notes

No Changes

Document Notes

  • Added documentation of raw_snapshot tool to multisense_ros.

  • Added documentation for temporary calibration check service.

Release 1.1

Date 2013-04-30

Driver Notes

Initial public release.

Document Notes

Initial public release.