Streaming Mocap Data into ROS by OSC

ROS is an open-source framework for developing robotic applications. It allows you to connect sensors, control systems, visualization tools, and more within a unified architecture.

Motion data captured with MOVIN TRACIN and MOVIN Studio can be streamed in real time or played back from recorded files within a ROS 2 environment. The data can then be retargeted to a robot model, allowing you to visualize its movement in RViz2 or integrate it directly into your robot control pipeline for further development.

Prerequisites

Before integrating with ROS, please make sure your environment is properly set up as described below.

• ROS 2:

  • Humble (tested)

• Required ROS 2 Packages:

  • robot_state_publisher

  • rvix2

  • xacro

  • tf2_ros

• Required pip Packages:

  • numpy

  • scipy

  • movin-sdk-python (Required for BVH file loading and real-time mode)

1

Download Motion-Player-ROS

cd ~/ros2_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/MOVIN3D/Motion-Player-ROS

• Navigate to the src folder of your ROS 2 workspace and clone the Motion-Player-ROS repository.

2

Install MOVIN SDK Python

pip install git+https://github.com/MOVIN3D/MOVIN-SDK-Python.git

• Before proceeding, check that all required packages from the Prerequisites section are installed.

• The movin-sdk-python package is necessary for BVH file loading and real-time live streaming.

  • For more information about MOVIN-SDK-Python, please refer to the repository link.

3

Build the Package

cd ~/ros2_ws
colcon build --packages-select motion_player

• Move to the root of your workspace and build the motion_player package.

4

Source the Workspace

source ~/ros2_ws/install/setup.bash

• After building, source the install/setup.bash file in your terminal session.

  • This step is required for ROS to recognize the motion_player package.

5

Run Real-Time Mode

ros2 launch motion_player realtime.launch.py

• Launch real-time mode to receive motion data from MOVIN Studio.

• In real-time mode, you can:

  • Real-time Retargeting: Retargeting motion data instantly to a robot model

  • Real-time Visualization: Visualize both the mocap skeleton and the retargeted robot motion simultaneously in RViz2

ros2 launch motion_player realtime.launch.py port:=11235 human_height:=1.80 skeleton_offset_x:=1.5

• You can customize parameters as needed:

Argument	Default	Description
port	11235	UDP port to listen for OSC mocap data
robot_type	unitree_g1	Target robot type (unitree_g1 or unitree_g1_with_hands)
human_height	1.75	Human height in meters for scaling
skeleton_offset_x	1.0	X offset to place skeleton beside robot
urdf_file	(package default)	Path to custom URDF file
rviz_config	(package default)	Path to custom RViz config file

You may also run the node directly using the --realtime flag:

ros2 run motion_player motion_player --realtime --ros-args -p port:=11235 -p human_height:=1.8

6

Start OSC Streaming in MOVIN Studio

• Start OSC streaming in MOVIN Studio.

• Please check that the port number configured in ROS matches the port number set in MOVIN Studio.