Insight - a minimalist GUI for ROS2

Insight is a minimalist GUI alternative to rqt. It is a GTK4-based tool for exploring ROS2 topics, services, and messages, featuring the GNOME Adwaita style.

Features

Nodes

### Node List Page - Browse all active ROS2 nodes - Group nodes by namespace - Search and filter nodes - View hidden nodes ### Node Info Page - View detailed node information - Display node publishers, subscribers - Show service clients and servers and action clients and servers - Show Node parameters and jump to the parameter edit page

Topics

### Topic List Page - Browse all available ROS2 topics - Group topics by namespace - Search and filter topics - View topic types and hidden topics ### Topic Info Page - View detailed topic information - Display topic interface types and their definition - Show publishers and subscribers ### Topic Publisher Page - Publish messages to ROS2 topics - Edit the published message as YAML/JSON/CSV - Publish once or as continuous stream ### Topic Subscriber Page - Subscribe to ROS2 topics - Receive messages as YAML/JSON/CSV - Message history and filtering - Get only one message or the continuous stream

Services

### Service List Page - Browse all available ROS2 services - Group services by namespace - Search and filter services - View service types and hidden services ### Service Info - View detailed service information - Show service providers - Display service request/response interface type and definition - Quickly jump to the service call page ### Service Call Page - Call ROS2 services - Edit the service request as YAML/JSON/CSV - View service responses

Actions

### Action List Page - Browse all available ROS2 actions - Group actions by namespace - Search and filter actions - View action types ### Action Info Page - View detailed action information - Display action interface type and definition - Show action servers and clients - Access goal/result/feedback structure ### Action Goal Page - Send goals to ROS2 action servers - Edit the goal message as YAML/JSON/CSV - View feedback and results

Parameters

### Parameter List Page - Browse all ROS2 parameters - Group parameters by node - Search and filter parameters - View parameter types and values ### Parameter Edit Page - Edit ROS2 parameter values - Support for different parameter types - Real-time parameter updates - Parameter validation

Packages

### Package List Page - Browse all ROS2 packages - Search and filter packages - View package information ### Package Info Page - View detailed package information - Show package executables - Access package metadata - Display package dependencies ### New Package Dialog - Create new ROS2 packages - Configure package settings - Set dependencies and build type - Specify destination directory

Launch Files

### Launch List Page - Browse available launch files - Search and filter launch files - View launch file information ### Launch Info Page - ! STILL EXPERIMENTAL ! - View launch file details - Display launch arguments, and started nodes - Launch file execution

Interfaces

### Interface Browser Page - Browse ROS2 message/service/action interfaces - Interfaces are grouped by their packages - Switch between all/msgs/srvs/actions interfaces types - Access interface infos ### Interface Info Page - View interface constants - Separate message / service (request/response) / action (goal/feedback/result) - Navigate through nested interfaces - Open interface definitions in a separate text editor or show it online - View detailed interface definitions - Display default values for basic data types (like int, string etc) ### Interface Definition Page - Show raw interface definition as YAML/JSON/CSV - Copy string representation into clipboard

Misc

### TF Page - View TF transformation tree - Display coordinate frames - Show frame relationships ### Image Viewer Page - Display ROS2 image topics - Show images as single shot or continuous stream - Image format support - Display image meta data ### Teleop - Robot teleoperation interface with Twist (and later Joy) - Control it via direction buttons or via keyboard ### Graph Page - ! STILL EXPERIMENTAL ! - Visualize ROS2 node-topic connections - Interactive graph layout - Quickly jump to respectify info page for further info on the node/topic ### Joint States Page - ! STILL EXPERIMENTAL ! - Monitor robot joint states

Diagnosis

### Doctor Page - ROS2 system diagnostics - Network configuration check - Package version information - QoS compatibility analysis ### Logger Page - View ROS2 log messages - Filter logs by severity - Regex search for messages and nodes

GUI Features

### Preferences Dialog - Change the settings of the application - Set ROS2 environmental variables - Theme and appearance options - Behavior configuration ### Multi-Window Support - Multiple windows via detachable pages ### Shortcuts - `CTRL+R` or `F5` triggers a refresh of the page - `CTRL+F` triggers the search on every page - `CTRL+D` detaches the current page into a new window - `CTRL+ENTER` triggers the pages main action (like publish) - `CTRL+Q` closes the current window ### Appearance - DARK THEME! (depending on the current system theme)

Prerequisites

Install the following packages, as some currently cannot be installed by rosdep (I’m working on it).

sudo apt install libgtk-4-dev libgirepository1.0-dev adwaita-icon-theme libadwaita-1-dev libglib2.0-dev python3-gi python3-gi-cairo python3-networkx python3-graphviz

Installation

Binary Install with apt

! THIS IS NOT WORKING YET, but hopefully will in the future (I’m waiting for approval) !

sudo apt install ros-jazzy-insight-gui

Install from Source

1. Create the workspace and clone this repo:

mkdir -p ros2_ws/src
cd ros2_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/julianmueller/insight_gui

If you want the jazzy-dev branch, where I’m currently working on the latest features, use:

git clone -b jazzy-dev https://github.com/julianmueller/insight_gui

1. Install dependencies with rosdep:

rosdep install --from-paths src -y --ignore-src

1. Build the workspace:

colcon build --symlink-install
source install/setup.bash

Execution

Like every other ros2 node, the GUI is started by:

ros2 run insight_gui main

License

GPLv3. See LICENSE.