SMapper Toolbox

The SMapper Toolbox is a command-line interface (CLI) built with Python to simplify the calibration process for the SMapper device. It automates complex procedures, reducing them to a handful of simple commands.

Features

Automated Calibration: Executes the Kalibr toolbox within Docker containers to handle camera intrinsics, IMU noise models, and camera-IMU extrinsics.
ROS Bag Conversion: Automatically converts ROS2 bags to the ROS1 format required by Kalibr.
TF Tree Generation: Creates a complete ROS transformation (TF) tree from the calibration results.
Configuration Conversion: Transforms Kalibr's output into standard ROS camera_info configuration files.

How It Works

The toolbox streamlines calibration by spawning Docker containers with the Kalibr environment. Since Kalibr requires ROS1, the toolbox first initiates a conversion process to transform your ROS2 rosbags into the compatible ROS1 format before running the calibration tasks.

Prerequisites

Before using the toolbox, ensure you have met the following requirements.

1. UV Package Manager

The smapper_toolbox uses UV, an extremely fast Python package manager from Astral.

Installation (Linux/macOS):

curl -LsSf [https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh](https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh) | sh

You can find more information about UV on its official website and GitHub repository.

2. Rosbag Folder Structure

For the calibration commands, your rosbags must be organized in the following directory structure. The toolbox looks for a root folder containing a ros2 subdirectory where the bags are located.

.
└── ros2
    ├── bag1
    ├── bag2

Getting Started

Configuration

The primary configuration file is located at config/config.yaml. Here, you can define settings for the calibration pipeline, such as workspace parameters.

Alternatively, many settings can be overridden directly with command-line options. For example: toolbox kalibr [subcommand] --option-name value

Some commands, like cam_info, require input and output files to be specified via options: toolbox cam_info generate --input <input_file> --output <output_file>

Usage

Navigate to the root directory of the smapper_toolbox project.
Run the help command. On the first run, UV will automatically download and install all required dependencies into a virtual environment.
```
uv run ./toolbox --help
```

This will display the main help menu, showing all available commands and options:

❯ uv run ./toolbox --help
INFO:     Hello from calib-toolbox!

 Usage: toolbox [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...

 A toolbox to help automate the calibration process using dockerised kalibr.

 This tool helps calibrate cameras and IMUs using the Kalibr toolbox in a Docker container. It supports
 camera calibration, IMU calibration, and camera-IMU calibration.

╭─ Options ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ --install-completion           Install completion for the current shell.                                │
│ --show-completion              Show completion for the current shell, to copy it or customize the       │
│                                installation.                                                            │
│ --help                         Show this message and exit.                                              │
╰─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
╭─ Commands ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ kalibr                                                                                                  │
│ transforms                                                                                              │
│ cam_info                                                                                                │
╰─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯