Nova Rerun Bridge

A visualization extension for wandelbots-nova that enables real-time 3D visualization of robot trajectories using rerun.io.

nova_rerun_bridge.mp4

Prerequisites

• A running Nova instance (get access at wandelbots.com)
• wandelbots-nova Python package
• Valid Nova API credentials

🚀 Quick Start

Check out the minimal example:

# Install the package
poetry install

# Download required robot models
poetry run download-models

# Add credentials and instance to .env file
NOVA_API="https://your-instance.wandelbots.io"
NOVA_ACCESS_TOKEN="your-access-token"

from nova_rerun_bridge import NovaRerunBridge
from nova import Nova

# Connect to your Nova instance (or use .env file)
nova = Nova(
    host="https://your-instance.wandelbots.io",
    access_token="your-access-token"
)
bridge = NovaRerunBridge(nova)

# Setup visualization
await bridge.setup_blueprint()

# Log a trajectory
await bridge.log_trajectory(joint_trajectory, tcp, motion_group)

✨ Features

• 🤖 Real-time 3D robot visualization (see a list of supported robots)
• 🎯 Trajectory playback and analysis
• 💥 Collision scene visualization
• ⏱️ Motion timing analysis
• 🔄 Continuous monitoring mode

💻 Usage Examples

The python library can be used to feed data to the rerun desktop app. The library is built on top of the nova python library and provides a simple interface to feed data to the rerun desktop app. See the minimal example on how to use the library.

Basic Motion Logging

# Log simple motion
await bridge.log_trajectory(joint_trajectory, tcp, motion_group)

Collision Scene Visualization

# Log collision scenes
await bridge.log_collision_scenes()

Stream current robot state

# Start streaming robot state
await bridge.start_streaming(motion_group)

# Stop streaming all robot states
await bridge.stop_streaming()

Log Actions

# Log planned actions
await bridge.log_actions(actions)

Setup

Adjust the NOVA_API and NOVA_ACCESS_TOKEN in the .env file to your instance URL (e.g. https://unzhoume.instance.wandelbots.io) and access token. You can find the access token in the developer portal.

📚 More Examples

Check out our example repository for more detailed examples.

⚙️ Configuration

The bridge can be configured through environment variables:

• RECORDING_INTERVAL: Set visualization update interval (default: 0.1s)

Download Robot Models

After installing the library, you need to download the robot models:

# If installed via poetry
poetry run download-models

# If installed via pip
python -m nova_rerun_bridge.models.download_models

This will download the robot models into your project folder. You can use the library without downloading the models, but you will not be able to visualize the robot models in the rerun viewer.

Tools

Code formatting and linting is done with [ruff]

poetry run ruff check scripts/. --fix
poetry run ruff format

Build

To build the package locally, run the following command

poetry build

This will create a dist/ directory with the built package (.tar.gz and .whl files).

Install a development branch in Poetry

nova-rerun-bridge = { git = "https://github.com/wandelbotsgmbh/nova-rerun-bridge.git", branch = "feature/branchname" }

Run as Nova App

The easiest way to try it out is to install the app on your nova instance. Use the nova cli tool and run:

nova catalog install rerun
nova catalog install nova-rerun-bridge

The nova rerun bridge will be installed on your nova instance and automatically collect all planned motions (see nova_rerun_bridge/polling/populate.py). If you click on the rerun bridge app, it will start a download of a nova.rrd file. You can open this file with the rerun desktop app or the installed rerun app on the ipc and see the visualization.

Development

Deploy on local instance

• use the kubeconfig from your nova instance and run export KUBECONFIG=kubeconfig

• you can use skaffold to build the image and change the deployment

skaffold dev --cleanup=false --status-check=false

Issues

• rerun is able to run behind reverse proxy and the viewer can connect via web
• rerun sdk is not able to connect to rerun which is hosted behind reverse proxy
  • client communicates just via sockets
  • intermediate solution is socat

brew install socat
socat TCP4-LISTEN:6666,fork SYSTEM:"curl -X POST -d @- http://172.30.2.224/some/rerun/sdk/"

{ echo "load_module /usr/lib/nginx/modules/ngx_stream_module.so;"; cat /etc/nginx/nginx.conf; } > temp_file && mv temp_file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

📝 License

This project is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License - see the LICENSE file for details.