Inspecting and visualizing a map

You can use the ms (map statistics) command to get information about the selected map. In the case of the vi_app_test map, the output of ms should look similar to this:

VI-Map:

Mission 0:              c7957efb9cf29d4874676106d6beb551  Viwls
  Vertices:             405
  Landmarks:            8359
  Landmarks by first observer backlink:
  Camera 0:             8359 (g:0 b:0 u:8359)
  Observations:         174464
  Distance travelled [m]:  23.406851
  Start to end time:    1970_01_01_03_13_13 to 1970_01_01_03_13_53
  T_G_M                 unknown

To visualize a map, use the v (visualize) command. You can then look at the map in rviz. Make sure you have a roscore running and start rviz in a new terminal with

rosrun rviz rviz

On the left side, click the Add button and select the data you want to visualize. In the tab By topic, select Marker from /vi_map_edges/viwls and PointCloud2 from vi_map_landmarks, should give you a view similar to this:

Map management in the console

Renaming a map

rename --map_key my_new_map_key

This will rename the currently selected map to my_new_map_key.

Copying a map

copy_map --target_map_key copied_map_key

This will copy the currently selected map into copied_map_key.

Deleting a map

delete

This will delete the currently selected map from the console. The map on the file system will not be touched and will remain.