Visualize data in LCM

System blocks communicate with opening ports. Data flow from one port to another through LCM pipelines. We could visualize the data.

Open the visualizer

Ensure that you have installed the drake visualizer with

cd drake
bazel build //tools:drake_visualizer
bazel-bin/tools/drake_visualizer

Open LCM data inspector

In another terminal, we open the LCM data inspector by

cd drake
bazel-bin/lcmtypes/drake-lcm-spy

Execute the robot

To visualize data, we need data. Controlling a robot to move is a good way to get data flowing. We start a KUKA arm simulation in another terminal:

bazel-bin/examples/kuka_iiwa_arm/kuka_simulation

Then in another terminal we open up a "planner and runner".

bazel-bin/examples/kuka_iiwa_arm/kuka_plan_runner

Finally we need to send command to the planner, it will run the KUKA arm.

bazel-bin/examples/kuka_iiwa_arm/move_iiwa_ee -x 0.8 -y 0.3 -z 0.25 -yaw 1.57

You should see the robot arm moving with the commanding data in the LCM inspector change simultaneously. For more detailed data stream, you can double click on each LCM channel.

Links

The KUKA Manipulation example is here.