Interacting with VOXL Mapper

Table of contents

1. Interacting with VOXL Mapper through VOXL Portal
   1. Viewing the map
   2. Sending a Plan
   3. Saving and Loading Maps
   4. Mesh Api
   5. Other Controls

Interacting with VOXL Mapper through VOXL Portal

Viewing the map

In VOXL Portal, select the map tab to interact with voxl-mapper. VOXL Portal has two options for viewing. A 2D view which will show the distances to objects for a given height (this view represents a slice through the 3D map at the specified height). There is also a 3D view which will show the mesh of the surrounding area.

Sending a Plan

Select Plan to a Point and click anywhere on the map. A point will appear at a height of 0. Use the arrows to drag the point to your desired location. Next, select Go to create a plan to that point. Once a plan is found, press the Follow Path button at the bottom of the page to tell the robot to follow the path. You may press Abort at anytime to stop the robot from moving. Please adhere to the safety messages before allowing the robot to fly autonomously.

Alternatively, you can press Plan Home to have the robot plan to its home position. Home will always be 1.5m above the (0, 0) location.

Saving and Loading Maps

Within the map view of VOXL Portal, there are options for Save Map and Load Map. To save a map, select Save Map, optionally enter a directory path for the files to be saved at (defaults to /data/voxl-mapper/), and choose a mesh format to save from the radio options. The files that will be saved are: esdf_map, tsdf_map, mesh.(depending on file type you select), with the esdf and tsdf maps used by voxl-mapper and the mesh as an export tool.

For loading maps, simply select Load Map and optionally enter a directory path for the files to be loaded from (default again is /data/voxl-mapper).

Mesh Api

VOXL Portal also serves an Api to directly grab the mesh data in one of four file formats: .ply, .obj, .gltf, or .esdf. To use this Api, simply fetch /mesh_api/, where format can be any of the supported file extensions without the . (ply, obj, gltf, esdf).

Example: fetch(192.168.8.1/mesh_api/gltf)

Other Controls

Alongside planning and map saving/loading, the Mapper tab provides:

• Download Map — download the mesh directly in your browser in the chosen format
• Clear Map — clear the current map
• Reset VIO — reset the VIO estimator
• Clear Paths — remove planned paths from the view
• Position, Debug Pointcloud, and Debug ESDF toggles for visualizing the robot position and the raw data behind the map
• Orbit Control, Fly Control, and FPV Mode camera modes for navigating the 3D view
• A height slider in the 2D costmap view to select the height of the map slice
• A camera stream overlay for displaying a live camera feed on top of the map view