Attention

As of June 30, 2025, the Isaac ROS Buildfarm for Isaac ROS 2.1 on Ubuntu 20.04 Focal is no longer supported.

Due to an isolated infrastructure event, all ROS 2 Humble Debian packages that were previously built for Ubuntu 20.04 are no longer available in the Isaac Apt Repository. All artifacts for Isaac ROS 3.0 and later are built and maintained with a more robust pipeline.

Users are encouraged to migrate to the latest version of Isaac ROS. The source code for Isaac ROS 2.1 continues to be available on the release-2.1 branches of the Isaac ROS GitHub repositories.

The original documentation for Isaac ROS 2.1 is preserved below.

ROS Topics and Services

Find all topics and services of the nvblox_node and the nvblox_human_node below.

Note

The human reconstruction tutorials (Isaac Sim / realsense) launch the nvblox_human_node, while the static reconstruction tutorials (Isaac Sim / realsense) as well as the dynamic reconstruction tutorials (Isaac Sim / realsense) launch the nvblox_node. The nvblox_human_node inherits from the nvblox_node and is adding additional topic subscriptions for the mask image containing the human semantic segmentation.

ROS Topics Subscribed

ROS Topic	Interface	Description
`pointcloud`	sensor_msgs/PointCloud2	Input 3D LIDAR pointcloud. Make sure to set the lidar intrinsic parameters if using this input, as it uses those to convert the pointcloud into a depth image.
`color/image`	sensor_msgs/Image	Optional input color image to be integrated. Must be paired with a `camera_info` message below. Only used to color the mesh.
`color/camera_info`	sensor_msgs/CameraInfo	Optional topic along with the color image above. Contains intrinsics of the color camera.
`depth/image`	sensor_msgs/Image	The input depth image to be integrated. Must be paired with a `camera_info` message below. Supports both floating-point (depth in meters) and `uint16` (depth in millimeters, OpenNI format).
`depth/camera_info`	sensor_msgs/CameraInfo	Required topic along with the depth image. Contains intrinsic calibration parameters of the depth camera.
`transform`	geometry_message/TransformStamped	Odometry as stamped transform messages. Not required if `use_tf_transforms` is set to true.
`pose`	geometry_message/PoseStamped	Odometry as stamped pose messages. Not required if `use_tf_transforms` is set to true.

Additionally subscribed topics by the nvblox_human_node:

ROS Topic	Interface	Description
`mask/image`	sensor_msgs/Image	The mask image with the human segmentation (non-human pixels = 0 and human pixels = 1). In the Human Reconstruction with RealSense tutorial this is published by Isaac ROS Image Segmentation.
`mask/camera_info`	sensor_msgs/CameraInfo	Required topic along with the mask image. Contains intrinsic calibration parameters of the mask camera.

ROS Topics Published

ROS Topic	Interface	Description
`~/mesh`	nvblox_msgs/Mesh	A visualization topic showing the mesh produced from the TSDF in a form that can be seen in RViz using `nvblox_rviz_plugin`. Set `mesh_update_rate_hz` to control its update rate.
`~/mesh_marker`	visualization_msgs/Marker	A visualization topic showing the mesh using a marker message.
`~/static_esdf_pointcloud`	sensor_msgs/PointCloud2	A pointcloud of the static 2D ESDF (Euclidean Signed Distance Field), with intensity as the metric distance to the nearest obstacle. Set `esdf_update_rate_hz` to control its update rate.
`~/static_map_slice`	nvblox_msgs/DistanceMapSlice	A 2D slice of the static ESDF, to be consumed by `nvblox_nav2` package for interfacing with Nav2. Set `esdf_update_rate_hz` to control its update rate.
`~/static_occupancy`	sensor_msgs/PointCloud2	A pointcloud of the static occupancy map (only voxels with occupation `probability > 0.5`). Set `static_occupancy_publication_rate_hz` to control its publication rate.
`~/map_slice_bounds`	visualization_msgs/Marker	A visualization topic showing the mesh slice bounds that can be set with the parameters `esdf_2d_min_height` and `esdf_2d_min_height`.
`~/back_projected_depth`	sensor_msgs/PointCloud2	A pointcloud of the back projected latest depth image in the global frame.
`~/dynamic_occupancy`	sensor_msgs/PointCloud2	A pointcloud of the human/dynamic occupancy map (only voxels with occupation `probability > 0.5`).
`~/dynamic_esdf_pointcloud`	sensor_msgs/PointCloud2	A pointcloud of the human/dynamic 2D ESDF (Euclidean Signed Distance Field), with intensity as the metric distance to the nearest human. Set `esdf_update_rate_hz` to control its update rate.
`~/dynamic_map_slice`	nvblox_msgs/DistanceMapSlice	A 2D slice of the human/dynamic ESDF, to be consumed by `nvblox_nav2` package for interfacing with Nav2. Set `esdf_update_rate_hz` to control its update rate.
`~/dynamic_points`	sensor_msgs/PointCloud2	Pointcloud visualizing the back-projected pixels of the latest human/dynamic masked depth frame (without temporal fusion).
`~/dynamic_depth_frame_overlay`	sensor_msgs/Image	Debug image showing the dynamic/human mask overlaid on the depth image. Note: The overlay is showing the mask before postprocessing.
`~/freespace`	sensor_msgs/PointCloud2	Pointcloud visualizing all non high confidence freespace voxels inside a 5x5x1 m box around the depth camera.
`~/combined_esdf_pointcloud`	sensor_msgs/PointCloud2	A pointcloud of the combined static and human/dynamic 2D ESDF (minimal distance of both), with intensity as the metric distance to the nearest obstacle or human. Set `esdf_update_rate_hz` to control its update rate.
`~/combined_map_slice`	nvblox_msgs/DistanceMapSlice	A 2D slice of the combined static and human/dynamic ESDF (minimal distance of both), to be consumed by `nvblox_nav2` package for interfacing with Nav2. Set `esdf_update_rate_hz` to control its update rate.

Additionally published topics by the nvblox_human_node:

ROS Topic	Interface	Description
`~/human_voxels`	visualization_msgs/Marker	The pointcloud published at `~/dynamic_points` mapped to the corresponding voxels. Set `human_debug_publish_rate_h` to control its update rate.
`~/dynamic_color_frame_overlay`	sensor_msgs/Image	Debug image showing the human mask overlaid on the color image.

ROS Services Advertised

ROS Service	Interface	Description
`~/save_ply`	nvblox_msgs/FilePath	Will save the mesh as the PLY (standard polygon file format, which can be viewed with MeshLab or CloudCompare) at the specified location.
`~/save_map`	nvblox_msgs/FilePath	Will serialize the entire map, including TSDF, ESDF, etc., at the given location.
`~/load_map`	nvblox_msgs/FilePath	Will overwrite the current map in the node with a map loaded from the given path.

Example service calls from the command line:

ros2 service call /nvblox_node/save_ply nvblox_msgs/srv/FilePath "{file_path: '/home/USERNAME/super_cool_map.ply'}"
ros2 service call /nvblox_node/save_map nvblox_msgs/srv/FilePath "{file_path: '/home/USERNAME/super_cool_map.nvblx'}"
ros2 service call /nvblox_node/load_map nvblox_msgs/srv/FilePath "{file_path: '/home/USERNAME/super_cool_map.nvblx'}"