Scan-Image Converter

The scan_image_converter ROS package contains a node that takes as input a sensor_msgs/LaserScan message and converts it into a sensor_msgs/Image (polar to Cartesian space translation).

You can simply run it as follows:

rosrun scan_image_converter scan_image_converter

Which will listen for a laser reading on the topic base_scan and publish its corresponding image representation to the scan_image topic. The black and white output image also has a flipped frame of reference published to scan_image/flipped.

Parameters image_size_x & image_size_y can be used to adjust the size of the output image.

Illustrations of its use for applications such as Augmented Reality (AR) and robot navigation are available in the following academic papers:

@inproceedings{Zolotas2018,
    author = {Zolotas, M and Elsdon, J and Demiris, Y},
    booktitle = {IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)},
    pages = {1823--1829},
    title = {{Head-Mounted Augmented Reality for Explainable Robotic Wheelchair Assistance}},
    year = {2018}
}

@inproceedings{Zolotas2019,
    author = {Zolotas, M and Demiris, Y},
    booktitle = {IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)},
    pages = {3020--3026},
    title = {{Towards Explainable Shared Control using Augmented Reality}},
    year = {2019}
}

Which also provide a high-level description of the package's functionality.

Finally, please note that any contributions/feedback will be well-received.