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RTAB-Map Setup

This guide covers setting up RTAB-Map to provide SLAM poses for RTSM.

Overview

RTSM needs camera poses (position + orientation) to project 2D detections into 3D space. RTAB-Map is a popular open-source visual SLAM system that works well with RGB-D cameras.

RealSense → RTAB-Map → Poses → ZeroMQ → RTSM

Installation

Ubuntu / WSL2

sudo apt update
sudo apt install ros-humble-rtabmap-ros

Or build from source:

git clone https://github.com/introlab/rtabmap.git
cd rtabmap/build
cmake ..
make -j$(nproc)
sudo make install

Windows

Download from RTAB-Map releases.

Running with RealSense

Option 1: Standalone (No ROS)

rtabmap-realsense

This opens the RTAB-Map GUI with RealSense input.

Option 2: ROS 2

ros2 launch rtabmap_launch rtabmap.launch.py \
  rgb_topic:=/camera/color/image_raw \
  depth_topic:=/camera/depth/image_rect_raw \
  camera_info_topic:=/camera/color/camera_info

ZeroMQ Bridge

RTSM expects poses via ZeroMQ. Use the bridge utility:

# From the rtsm-rtabmap-bridge repo
python rtabmap_zmq_bridge.py --rtabmap-addr localhost:5555 --zmq-pub tcp://*:5556

Message Format

The bridge publishes pose messages:

{
  "timestamp": 1705312200.123,
  "position": [1.2, 0.4, 2.1],
  "orientation": [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0],
  "frame_id": 12345
}

Configuration

RTAB-Map Parameters

For indoor robotics, these defaults work well:

Rtabmap/DetectionRate=2
Vis/MinInliers=15
RGBD/OptimizeMaxError=3.0
Mem/STMSize=30

RTSM Configuration

In config/rtsm.yaml:

io:
  zmq_slam_addr: "tcp://localhost:5556"

Troubleshooting

"No poses received"

  1. Check RTAB-Map is running and tracking
  2. Verify ZMQ bridge is connected: netstat -an | grep 5556
  3. Check for firewall blocking localhost ports

Drift / Poor Tracking

  • Ensure adequate lighting
  • Add visual features to the environment (avoid blank walls)
  • Reduce camera motion speed
  • Enable loop closure in RTAB-Map

WSL2 USB Issues

WSL2 doesn't natively support USB. Use usbipd-win:

# PowerShell (admin)
usbipd wsl list
usbipd wsl attach --busid <BUSID>

Next Steps