Running Rviz on Windows

ROS For Windows

1. Install Chocolatey https://chocolatey.org/install Here are the condensed steps:

• Start a PowerShell terminal AS ADMINISTRATOR
• Run Get-ExecutionPolicy. If it returns Restricted, then run Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass
  • Note, this is a bit of a security issue, but it works. See here if you have concerns.
• Then run this to install choco:

Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://community.chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))

2. ROS for Windows http://wiki.ros.org/Installation/Windows I am skipping steps that I don't need. My goal isn't a "full development environment", just to be able to use basic ROS built-in tools.

• Install git:

choco upgrade git -y

• Install ROS. This is copied directly from the above web site.

mkdir c:\opt\chocolatey
set ChocolateyInstall=c:\opt\chocolatey
choco source add -n=ros-win -s="https://aka.ms/ros/public" --priority=1
choco upgrade ros-noetic-desktop_full -y --execution-timeout=0

3. Download a copy of the navigation.rviz file for use in Windows

Go to: https://github.com/chrisl8/ArloBot/blob/noetic/arlobot_ros/rviz/navigation.rviz Click on the "Raw" button. In the browser do what you need to in order to download it:

• Typically Right click on the page ans select "Save as"
• If it tries to add a .txt extention, REMOVE that so that it ends in .rviz
• Save it somewhere easy to find.

Check the file and make sure that it does NOT have a .txt extension, if it does, fix it.

4. Run Rviz

• Get the IP Address of the Robot, and also of this Windows machine.
• Open a Command Promt (cmd, NOT PowerShell) doesn't need to be administrator and run:
  • Replace "192.168.1.ROBOT" with the robot's IP address.
  • Replace "192.168.1.ME" with the IP address if THIS Windows system.

c:\opt\ros\noetic\x64\setup.bat
set ROS_MASTER_URI=http://192.168.1.ROBOT:11311
set ROS_HOSTNAME=192.168.1.ME
set ROS_IP=192.168.1.ME
c:\opt\ros\noetic\x64\bin\rviz.exe

Rviz should load momentarily.

• Click on File->Open Config
• Find the downloaded navigation.rviz file and open it.

Just like on Linux, if you do NOT have it making a map yet, select "odom" as the "Fixed Frame", or if you do have the map maker running, then leave it or change Fixed From back to "map".