Isaac ROS Object Detection

NVIDIA-accelerated, deep learned model support for object detection including DetectNet.

Overview

Isaac ROS Object Detection contains ROS 2 packages to perform object detection. isaac_ros_rtdetr, isaac_ros_detectnet, isaac_ros_yolov8, and isaac_ros_grounding_dino each provide a method for spatial classification using bounding boxes with an input image. Classification is performed by a GPU-accelerated model of the appropriate architecture:

• isaac_ros_rtdetr: RT-DETR models
• isaac_ros_detectnet: DetectNet models
• isaac_ros_yolov8: YOLOv8 models
• isaac_ros_grounding_dino: Grounding DINO models

The output prediction can be used by perception functions to understand the presence and spatial location of an object in an image.

Each Isaac ROS Object Detection package is used in a graph of nodes to provide a bounding box detection array with object classes from an input image. A trained model of the appropriate architecture is required to produce the detection array.

Input images may need to be cropped and resized to maintain the aspect ratio and match the input resolution of the specific object detection model; image resolution may be reduced to improve DNN inference performance, which typically scales directly with the number of pixels in the image. isaac_ros_dnn_image_encoder provides DNN encoder utilities to process the input image into Tensors for the object detection models. Prediction results are decoded in model-specific ways, often involving clustering and thresholding to group multiple detections on the same object and reduce spurious detections. Output is provided as a detection array with object classes.

DNNs have a minimum number of pixels that need to be visible on the object to provide a classification prediction. If a person cannot see the object in the image, it’s unlikely the DNN will. Reducing input resolution to reduce compute may reduce what is detected in the image. For example, a 1920x1080 image containing a distant person occupying 1k pixels (64x16) would have 0.25K pixels (32x8) when downscaled by 1/2 in both X and Y. The DNN may detect the person with the original input image, which provides 1K pixels for the person, and fail to detect the same person in the downscaled resolution, which only provides 0.25K pixels for the person.

Object detection classifies a rectangle of pixels as containing an object, whereas image segmentation provides more information and uses more compute to produce a classification per pixel. Object detection is used to know if, and where in a 2D image, the object exists. If a 3D spacial understanding or size of an object in pixels is required, use image segmentation.

ROS 2 Native rosidl::Buffer Acceleration

This package uses rosidl::Buffer, a feature built into ROS 2 Lyrical, to avoid unnecessary copies of large payloads between CPU and accelerator memory. The CUDA buffer backend builds on this native ROS 2 feature to provide CUDA memory storage and transport. Most applications can use standard ROS messages and conversion packages without depending directly on a buffer backend. See rosidl::Buffer and Buffer Backends for details.

Performance

Documentation

Please visit the Isaac ROS Documentation to learn how to use this repository.

Packages

• isaac_ros_detectnet
  • Quickstart
  • Try More Examples
  • ROS 2 Graph Configuration
  • Troubleshooting
  • API
• isaac_ros_grounding_dino
  • Quickstart
  • Troubleshooting
  • API
• isaac_ros_rtdetr
  • Quickstart
  • Try More Examples

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Isaac ROS Contribution Rules

Any contribution that you make to this repository will be under the Apache 2 License, as dictated by that license:

5. Submission of Contributions. Unless You explicitly state otherwise, any Contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the Work by You to the Licensor shall be under the terms and conditions of this License, without any additional terms or conditions. Notwithstanding the above, nothing herein shall supersede or modify the terms of any separate license agreement you may have executed with Licensor regarding such Contributions.

Contributors must sign-off each commit by adding a Signed-off-by: ... line to commit messages to certify that they have the right to submit the code they are contributing to the project according to the Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO).