Issue Running Isaac VSLAM with ZED Wrapper on Isaac ROS 3.1

Software ROS2
1

Hello everyone,

I have followed the official ZED camera setup instructions from NVIDIA’s Isaac ROS documentation:
ZED Setup for Isaac ROS

I’m using Isaac ROS version 3.1 and trying to run Isaac VSLAM based on this guide:
Isaac ROS Visual SLAM

What Works:

  • The build process completes without errors for both the ZED wrapper and Isaac VSLAM.
  • The ZED Explorer launches, and I can open the cameras successfully.

The Issue:

When running the following launch command for Isaac VSLAM:

ros2 launch isaac_ros_examples isaac_ros_examples.launch.py \
launch_fragments:=zed_stereo_rect,visual_slam \
base_frame:=zed2_camera_center camera_optical_frames:="['zed2_left_camera_optical_frame', 'zed2_right_camera_optical_frame']" \
interface_specs_file:=${ISAAC_ROS_WS}/isaac_ros_assets/isaac_ros_visual_slam/zedx_quickstart_interface_specs.json

I get this error:

[INFO] [launch]: All log files can be found below /home/admin/.ros/log/2025-01-29-13-02-41-371529-GTW-ONX2-ubuntu-13025
[INFO] [launch]: Default logging verbosity is set to INFO
[INFO] [1738155761.518415355] [isaac_ros_examples]: Info: Interface spec "camera_model" is overridden. The value from the overriding file will be used
[INFO] [1738155761.519713525] [isaac_ros_examples]: Info: Interface spec "camera_frame" is overridden. The value from the overriding file will be used
[INFO] [1738155761.520897324] [isaac_ros_examples]: Info: Interface spec "camera_resolution" is overridden. The value from the overriding file will be used
[ERROR] [launch]: Caught exception in launch (see debug for traceback): package 'zed_wrapper' found at '/workspaces/isaac_ros-dev/install/zed_wrapper', but libexec directory '/workspaces/isaac_ros-dev/install/zed_wrapper/lib/zed_wrapper' does not exist

Additional Observations:

  • When launching ZED Explorer manually using:
    /usr/local/zed/tools/ZED_Explorer
    I see the following message in the terminal:
    QStandardPaths: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR not set, defaulting to '/tmp/runtime-admin'
** [SVO] Hardware compression (NVENC) available **
[ZED-X][Warning] Failed to connect to zed_x_daemon.
  • Inside the ZED Explorer interface, I also notice a message indicating:
    Disk Free space 0GB on /home/admin/Documents/ZED

I suspect this could be related to either a missing component in the ZED wrapper installation or an issue with the expected directory structure. Any insights on how to resolve this would be appreciated.

2

Hi @Koen_Van_Wijlick,

Sorry for the late reply.

Which version of the ZED SDK are you using?
We do not support packages from isaac_ros, I would recommend you reach out to the nvidia team directly.

Regarding the ZED_Explorer issue, this can happen if your user does not have permission access to the directory. I’m guessing your user has access to /home/admin/Documents/ZED, but it would be safer to double check. If you still have the display issue and are unable to record SVOs, the ZED SDK version would help as well

3

Hello @mattrouss,

First of all thank you for your reply some of the issues have been fixed:

Furthermore i had to indeed give my docker file rights to write to that directory.

Alongside that i noticed that the ZED diagnostic doesnt seem to discover the GSML driver when inside the docker, while the cameras work as “expected”. Because when using the ROS2 Zed Wrapper i get a relative low performance of only 14 fps on Performance mode on HD1080, is this there a possible solution to this problem.

If i need to make another topic about this i will do that.

Kind regards,

Koen van Wijlick

4

Hi @Koen_Van_Wijlick,

I will close this issue, if you could create a new topic for other users to find the related post that would be great.

Please attach your hardware configuration, docker image version you are using, ZED SDK version, and if possible a comparison of depth inside and outside of docker.