Poor positional tracking performance through ROS2 wrapper when outdoor

Hi, I have been using the ZED2i camera indoors with great performance in terms of positional tracking, always starting the ZED node from the launch file. Since taking the camera outdoors, however, the positional tracking demonstrates very poor performance, jumping around frequently and not tracking properly. I have included a the contents of my yaml file below that I have been using indoors fine but doesn’t track well outdoors.

  • Ubuntu 22.04, ROS2 Humble, 11th gen i9 CPU, 3070 GPU, CURA 11.8.89, ZED SDK 4.0.5
  • Performance probably not an issue, works well indoors.
  • Plenty of features outdoors.

Taking .svo file and post-processing works very well in ZEDfu and launching ZED Node with svo_path also works well even using the same yaml. This confuses me because I thought that .svo files are processed in real time, but maybe I am mistaken?

Please let me know what to include to help sort this, or let me know how to improve performance outdoors in any way.

# config/common_yaml
# Common parameters to Stereolabs ZED and ZED mini cameras
#
# Note: the parameter svo_file is passed as exe argumet
---
/**:
    ros__parameters:

        general:
            svo_file: "" # usually overwritten by launch file
            svo_loop: false # Enable loop mode when using an SVO as input source
            svo_realtime: true # if true the SVO will be played trying to respect the original framerate eventually skipping frames, otherwise every frame will be processed respecting the `pub_frame_rate` setting
            camera_timeout_sec: 5
            camera_max_reconnect: 5
            camera_flip: false
            zed_id: 0 # IMPORTANT: to be used in simulation to distinguish individual cameras im multi-camera configurations - usually overwritten by launch file
            serial_number: 0 # usually overwritten by launch file
            pub_resolution: 'HD720' # The resolution used for output. 'HD2K', 'HD1080', 'HD1200', 'HD720', 'MEDIUM', 'SVGA', 'VGA', 'LOW'
            pub_frame_rate: 15.0 # [DYNAMIC] - frequency of publishing of visual images and depth images
            gpu_id: -1
            region_of_interest: '[]' # A polygon defining the ROI where the ZED SDK perform the processing ignoring the rest. Coordinates must be normalized to '1.0' to be resolution independent.
            #region_of_interest: '[[0.25,0.33],[0.75,0.33],[0.75,0.5],[0.5,0.75],[0.25,0.5]]' # A polygon defining the ROI where the ZED SDK perform the processing ignoring the rest. Coordinates must be normalized to '1.0' to be resolution independent.
            #region_of_interest: '[[0.25,0.25],[0.75,0.25],[0.75,0.75],[0.25,0.75]]' # A polygon defining the ROI where the ZED SDK perform the processing ignoring the rest. Coordinates must be normalized to '1.0' to be resolution independent.
            #region_of_interest: '[[0.5,0.25],[0.75,0.5],[0.5,0.75],[0.25,0.5]]' # A polygon defining the ROI where the ZED SDK perform the processing ignoring the rest. Coordinates must be normalized to '1.0' to be resolution independent.
            sdk_verbose: 1

        video:
            brightness: 4 # [DYNAMIC] Not available for ZED X/ZED X Mini
            contrast: 4 # [DYNAMIC] Not available for ZED X/ZED X Mini
            hue: 0 # [DYNAMIC] Not available for ZED X/ZED X Mini
            saturation: 4 # [DYNAMIC]
            sharpness: 4 # [DYNAMIC]
            gamma: 8 # [DYNAMIC]
            auto_exposure_gain: true # [DYNAMIC]
            exposure: 80 # [DYNAMIC]
            gain: 80 # [DYNAMIC]
            auto_whitebalance: true # [DYNAMIC]
            whitebalance_temperature: 42 # [DYNAMIC] - [28,65] works only if `auto_whitebalance` is false
            qos_history: 1 # '1': KEEP_LAST - '2': KEEP_ALL
            qos_depth: 1 # Queue size if using KEEP_LAST
            qos_reliability: 1 # '1': RELIABLE - '2': BEST_EFFORT -
            qos_durability: 2 # '1': TRANSIENT_LOCAL - '2': VOLATILE

        depth:
            depth_mode: 'NEURAL' # Matches the ZED SDK setting: 'NONE', 'PERFORMANCE', 'QUALITY', 'ULTRA', 'NEURAL' - Note: if 'NONE' all the modules that requires depth extraction are disabled by default (Pos. Tracking, Obj. Detection, Mapping, ...)
            depth_stabilization: 1 # Forces positional tracking to start if major than 0 - Range: [0,100]
            openni_depth_mode: false # 'false': 32bit float [meters], 'true': 16bit unsigned int [millimeters]
            point_cloud_freq: 10.0 # [DYNAMIC] - frequency of the pointcloud publishing (equal or less to `grab_frame_rate` value)
            depth_confidence: 50 # [DYNAMIC]
            depth_texture_conf: 100 # [DYNAMIC]
            remove_saturated_areas: true # [DYNAMIC]
            qos_history: 1 # '1': KEEP_LAST - '2': KEEP_ALL
            qos_depth: 1 # Queue size if using KEEP_LAST
            qos_reliability: 1 # '1': RELIABLE - '2': BEST_EFFORT -
            qos_durability: 2 # '1': TRANSIENT_LOCAL - '2': VOLATILE 

        pos_tracking:
            pos_tracking_enabled: true # True to enable positional tracking from start            
            imu_fusion: true # enable/disable IMU fusion. When set to false, only the optical odometry will be used.
            publish_tf: true # [usually overwritten by launch file] publish `odom -> base_link` TF
            publish_map_tf: true # [usually overwritten by launch file] publish `map -> odom` TF
            publish_imu_tf: true # [usually overwritten by launch file] enable/disable the IMU TF broadcasting
            base_frame: "base_link" # usually overwritten by launch file
            map_frame: "map"
            odometry_frame: "odom"
            area_memory_db_path: ""
            area_memory: true # Enable to detect loop closure
            depth_min_range: 0.0 # Set this value for removing fixed zones of the robot in the FoV of the camerafrom the visual odometry evaluation
            set_as_static: false # If 'true' the camera will be static and not move in the environment
            set_gravity_as_origin: true # If 'true' align the positional tracking world to imu gravity measurement. Keep the yaw from the user initial pose.
            floor_alignment: false # Enable to automatically calculate camera/floor offset
            initial_base_pose: [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0] # Initial position of the `base_frame` in the map -> [X, Y, Z, R, P, Y]
            init_odom_with_first_valid_pose: true # Enable to initialize the odometry with the first valid pose
            path_pub_rate: 2.0 # [DYNAMIC] - Camera trajectory publishing frequency
            path_max_count: -1 # use '-1' for unlimited path size
            two_d_mode: false # Force navigation on a plane. If true the Z value will be fixed to "fixed_z_value", roll and pitch to zero
            fixed_z_value: 0.00 # Value to be used for Z coordinate if `two_d_mode` is true
            transform_time_offset: 0.0 # The value added to the timestamp of `map->odom` and `odom->base_link`` transform being generated
            qos_history: 1 # '1': KEEP_LAST - '2': KEEP_ALL
            qos_depth: 1 # Queue size if using KEEP_LAST
            qos_reliability: 1 # '1': RELIABLE - '2': BEST_EFFORT
            qos_durability: 2 # '1': TRANSIENT_LOCAL - '2': VOLATILE

Solution seemed to be recalibrating the magnetometer (?)