Unable to use VisualSlamNode with intra-process comms when running with composition #141
Description
When running the VisualSlamNode with as composed in the same component container with e.g. the camera driver, it would be desirable to enable intra-process comms to enable transmitting the camera data more efficiently. However, this is not possible in the latest version v2.1.0, because there is apparently some topic with a transient local QoS included in the intra-process topics. Previously in 0.31.0-dp (which we just upgraded from) using intra-process comms worked.
I did not have time to thoroughly investigate which topic causes this, but I suspect the publisher to /tf_static (I did check most of the topics and everything that I saw had a volatile durability, while /tf_static obviously will have the transient local one). I am not sure why this node would need to publish static transforms, but if it is needed, it would be good to exclude it from the intra-process stuff.
For reference, here is how my launch of the node essentially looks like (this is part of a quite large launch file, so I'm leaving out some other nodes etc that are irrelevant for this issue):
def generate_launch_description():
visual_slam_node = ComposableNode(
name="visual_slam_node",
namespace="camera_1",
package="isaac_ros_visual_slam",
plugin="nvidia::isaac_ros::visual_slam::VisualSlamNode",
extra_arguments=[{"use_intra_process_comms": True}], # including this line breaks the launch
parameters=[
{
"denoise_input_images": False,
"rectified_images": True,
"enable_imu_fusion": False,
"enable_debug_mode": False,
"debug_dump_path": "/tmp/elbrus_1",
"enable_slam_visualization": False,
"enable_localization_n_mapping": False,
"enable_landmarks_view": False,
"enable_observations_view": False,
"publish_map_to_odom_tf": False,
"publish_odom_to_base_tf": False,
"map_frame": "map",
"odom_frame": "odom",
"base_frame": "base_link",
"input_base_frame": "base_link",
"input_left_camera_frame": "camera_1_infra1_frame",
"input_right_camera_frame": "camera_1_infra2_frame",
"input_imu_frame": "camera_1_imu_optical_frame",
}
],
)
cam_container = ComposableNodeContainer(
name="camera_1_container",
namespace="camera_1",
package="rclcpp_components",
executable="component_container", # it does not matter which container you use for this
emulate_tty=True,
composable_node_descriptions=[visual_slam_node],
output={"both": {"screen", "log", "own_log"}},
arguments=["--ros-args", "--log-level", "info"],
)
return LaunchDescription([cam_container])
Here are the relevant parts of the logs that I see when launching with the above setup. Note the error about intraprocess communication only being allowed with volatile durability.
[INFO] [component_container_isolated-1]: process started with pid [82]
[component_container_isolated-1] [INFO] [1704372041.453758765] [camera_1.camera_1_container]: Load Library: /karelics_workspace/karelics_brain/package_ws/install/isaac_ros_visual_slam/lib/libvisual_slam_node.so
[component_container_isolated-1] [INFO] [1704372041.767271885] [camera_1.camera_1_container]: Found class: rclcpp_components::NodeFactoryTemplate<nvidia::isaac_ros::visual_slam::VisualSlamNode>
[component_container_isolated-1] [INFO] [1704372041.767408176] [camera_1.camera_1_container]: Instantiate class: rclcpp_components::NodeFactoryTemplate<nvidia::isaac_ros::visual_slam::VisualSlamNode>
[ERROR] [launch_ros.actions.load_composable_nodes]: Failed to load node 'visual_slam_node' of type 'nvidia::isaac_ros::visual_slam::VisualSlamNode' in container '/camera_1/camera_1_container': Component constructor threw an exception: intraprocess communication allowed only with volatile durability
[component_container_isolated-1] [ERROR] [1704372043.184402808] [camera_1.camera_1_container]: Component constructor threw an exception: intraprocess communication allowed only with volatile durability