Package Summary

visualization_msgs is a set of messages used by higher level packages, such as rviz, that deal in visualization-specific data. The main messages in visualization_msgs is visualization_msgs/Marker. The marker message is used to send visualization "markers" such as boxes, spheres, arrows, lines, etc. to a visualization environment such as rviz. See the rviz tutorial rviz tutorials for more information.

Maintainer status: maintained
Maintainer: Tully Foote <tfoote AT osrfoundation DOT org>
Author: Josh Faust <jfaust AT willowgarage DOT com>, Davis Gossow <dgossow AT willowgarage DOT com>
License: BSD
Source: git https://github.com/ros/common_msgs.git (branch: groovy-devel)

New in Diamondback: this package was moved from visualization_common to common_msgs.

A useful overview of visualization_msgs/Marker types can be found at rviz/DisplayTypes/Marker.

An introduction to the InteractiveMarker messages is given in the interactive marker tutorial at rviz/Tutorials/Interactive Markers: Getting Started.

ROS Message Types

ROS Message Types

ImageMarker
InteractiveMarker
InteractiveMarkerControl
InteractiveMarkerFeedback
InteractiveMarkerInit
InteractiveMarkerPose
InteractiveMarkerUpdate
Marker
MarkerArray
MenuEntry

Interactive Marker messages

There are 6 interactive marker message types:

visualization_msgs/InteractiveMarkerUpdate is the top-level message for sending data from the interactive marker server to the client (i.e. rviz). The update message has an array of visualization_msgs/InteractiveMarker messages which are new or which need to be updated. It also has an array of visualization_msgs/InteractiveMarkerPose messages for sending only pose updates to existing interactive markers.

Each visualization_msgs/InteractiveMarker message has an array of visualization_msgs/InteractiveMarkerControls which describe its subcomponents. Each visualization_msgs/InteractiveMarkerControl has an array of visualization_msgs/Markers which together describe the shape of the control.

The visualization_msgs/InteractiveMarker message also has an array of visualization_msgs/MenuEntrys which together define a context menu which should appear when the appropriate action happens in the client (like a right-click). Although the entries are sent in a flat array, each one contains an id and a parent_id to specify a tree structure. This is described in visualization_msgs/MenuEntry.