3D

Display markers, entities, camera images, meshes, URDF models, and more in a 3D scene.

Introduction

By publishing specifically formatted messages to topics, you can create complex 3D scenes from primitive shapes, grids, point clouds, and other renderables.

Open the Panel settings tab in the app sidebar or click the settings icon (⚙) in the panel toolbar to configure the panel.

3d panel

Concepts

The 3D panel renders different types of visualizations into a common scene. There are a few general concepts to understand to correctly visualize your robot data.

Transforms

A robotics system produces many messages describing its observations of the world around it. These messages may exist in one or more coordinate frames. For example a lidar sensor might report readings relative to its frame of reference while an IMU will produce readings relative to another. Both of these might exist on different parts of the robot.

Transforms define the spacial relationships between two coordinate frames at some time. Transforms define this relationship between two frames often refering to one as the child and the other as a parent. These relationships are stored in a transform history within the panel.

In the 3D panel, the Display frame identifies the viewport coordinate frame. To render objects into the scene, there must exist a transform path from the object's coordinate frame to the display frame.

Transform history

The 3D panel stores coordinate frame relationships over time in a transform history store. Each coordinate frame stores up to 50,000 transform messages before it begins to remove the oldest messages as new messages arrive.

Transform preloading

Transform preloading in the 3D panel ensures an accurate scene by loading transform messages into memory. Transform preloading may impact 3D panel performance during preloading and seeking. You can disable preloading in the 3D panel settings. However, when disabled, the 3D panel may not properly render your scene in certain circumstances where infrequent coordinate frames are involved.

Topics

Each topic matching a supported visualization is displayable in the scene. Under each topic is a set of settings depending on the type of visualization. These configure additional aspects of how the visualization appears in the scene. You can toggle individual topics.

Supported messages

The 3D panel can visualize an assortment of different messages.

To visualize a topic, the messages on that topic must conform to one of the known message schemas listed below.

Camera field-of-view

Calibration parameters for your scene's camera.

framework	schema
ROS 1	`sensor_msgs/CameraInfo`
ROS 2	`sensor_msgs/msg/CameraInfo`
Custom	`foxglove.CameraCalibration`

Grid

2D colored grids.

grid

framework	schema
ROS 1	`nav_msgs/OccupancyGrid`
ROS 2	`nav_msgs/msg/OccupancyGrid`
Custom	`foxglove.Grid`

`foxglove.Grid` settings

field	description
Color mode	One of: Flat: solid color Color map: pre-defined color palette Gradient: smooth transition between two custom colors RGBA (separate fields): use embedded color from each cell's `red`, `green`, `blue`, and `alpha` fields (see below)
Flat color	Only shown if "Color mode" is set to "Flat"; hex code for color of each cell
Color by	Only shown if "Color mode" is set to any value but "Flat"; numeric field in message used for coloring logic
Color map	Only shown if "Color mode" is set to "Color map"; "Turbo" (Google) or "Rainbow" (RViz); for mapping "Color by" field values to colors
Opacity	Only shown if "Color mode" is set to "Color map" or "BGR (packed)"; sets alpha value for all cells
Value min	Only shown if "Color mode" is set to any value but "Flat"; minimum value used to normalize incoming grid's "Color by" field values
Value max	Only shown if "Color mode" is set to any value but "Flat"; maximum value used to normalize incoming grid's "Color by" field values
Frame lock	"On" means the grid is locked to the frame specified by its `frame_id`, and will move as that frame's transforms change. "Off" means the grid is relative to the fixed frame and will not move after it is first displayed.

RGBA (separate fields) color mode

Each cell can contain color information in four separate fields, named red, green, blue, and alpha, of any numeric type:

Floating-point values — 0–1 range
Unsigned integer values — Maximum possible range (e.g. 0–255 for a UINT8 field)
Signed integer values — -max to max (e.g. −127 to 127 for an INT8 field; a value of −128 is treated as identical to −127)

`nav_msgs/OccupancyGrid` settings

field	description
Color mode	One of: Costmap: pre-defined RViz color palette. Cannot customize settings further. Custom: custom color palette using settings below
Min color	Color corresponding to minimum cell value (0)
Max color	Color corresponding to maximum cell value (100). Note that cells with value exactly 100 are displayed as fully transparent.
Unknown color	Color corresponding to unknown cell value (−1)
Fallback color	Color corresponding to cell values that fall outside the range from −1 to 100
Frame lock	"On" means the grid is locked to the frame specified by its `frame_id`, and will move as that frame's transforms change. "Off" means the grid is relative to the fixed frame and will not move after it is first displayed.

Image

Images displayed in the 3D scene, using the corresponding Camera field-of-view messages.

framework	schema
ROS 1	`sensor_msgs/Image`
ROS 2	`sensor_msgs/msg/Image`
ROS 1	`sensor_msgs/CompressedImage`
ROS 2	`sensor_msgs/msg/CompressedImage`
Custom	`foxglove.RawImage`
Custom	`foxglove.CompressedImage`

Laser scan

A single scan from a planar laser range-finder.

framework	schema
ROS 1	`sensor_msgs/LaserScan`
ROS 2	`sensor_msgs/msg/LaserScan`
Custom	`foxglove.LaserScan`

ROS polygons

Timestamped polygons made up of a series of connected points.

framework	schema
ROS 1	`geometry_msgs/PolygonStamped`
ROS 2	`geometry_msgs/msg/PolygonStamped`

ROS markers

Similar to scene entities, these Marker messages describe primitive shapes or meshes.

framework	schema
ROS 1	`visualization_msgs/Marker`
ROS 2	`visualization_msgs/msg/Marker`
ROS 1	`visualization_msgs/MarkerArray`
ROS 2	`visualization_msgs/msg/MarkerArray`

Mesh markers

Markers with a mesh_resource field support the following URL schemes:

http(s)://
package:// (Desktop app only)
file:// (Desktop app only)

And file formats:

glTF
STL
COLLADA
Wavefront OBJ

glTF (.glb)

This is the preferred format, as it enjoys the best performance of all supported file types.

Binary glTF files bundle all required assets into a single file, with support for embedded meshes, compression, and the same physically-based material system used in Studio. As a result, your model should appear in Studio similarly to how it appears in other 3D programs.

STL (.stl)

STL files are well supported in Studio, but lack some of glTF's visualization features. The main advantage to STL is the ability to share the same files between your hardware manufacturing process and robot visualization tooling.

STL was designed for 3D printing and CAD applications, and does not include materials or hierarchies of meshes. While they can be represented in a binary encoding, STL files are commonly represented with ASCII characters, which leads to larger files.

COLLADA (.dae)

As a predecessor to glTF, COLLADA has a similar feature set. With that said, it does have larger XML-based files, no compression, and additional processing overhead.

There is a bug in RViz where the up-axis metadata is ignored, resulting in incorrect orientations for many .dae files in ROS environments. To work around this, the 3D panel has a Ignore COLLADA <up_axis> setting to toggle between observing the <up-axis> tag or ignoring it like RViz.

Wavefront OBJ (.obj)

OBJ is a simple ASCII format predating all other supported formats. It has large file sizes, no material support, no mesh hierarchies, no compression, and additional processing overhead.

Material support was added to the OBJ format as separate .mtl files, which Studio does not read.

Path

An array of timestamped poses in a named coordinate frame, denoting an object's path through space.

framework	schema
ROS 1	`nav_msgs/Path`
ROS 2	`nav_msgs/msg/Path`
Custom	`foxglove.PosesInFrame`

Point cloud

A collection of N-dimensional points, which may contain additional fields with information like normals, intensity, etc.

pointcloud

framework	schema
ROS 1	`sensor_msgs/PointCloud2`
ROS 2	`sensor_msgs/msg/PointCloud2`
Custom	`foxglove.PointCloud`

Settings

field	description
Point size	Size of each rendered point
Point shape	Shape of each rendered point
Stixel view	Visualize points as stixels that extend from the point's z location to 0
Decay time	Duration of time (in sec) that each point stays rendered
Color mode	One of: Flat: solid color Color map: pre-defined color palette Gradient: smooth transition between two custom colors BGR (packed): `sensor_msgs/PointCloud2` only; use embedded color from each point's `rgb` field (see below) BGRA (packed): `sensor_msgs/PointCloud2` only; use embedded color from each point's `rgba` field (see below) RGBA (separate fields): `foxglove.PointCloud` only; use embedded color from each point's `red`, `green`, `blue`, and `alpha` fields (see below)
Flat color	Only shown if "Color mode" is set to "Flat"; hex code for color of each point
Color by	Only shown if "Color mode" is set to any value but "Flat"; numeric field in message used for coloring logic
Color map	Only shown if "Color mode" is set to "Color map"; "Turbo" (Google) or "Rainbow" (RViz); for mapping "Color by" field values to colors
Opacity	Only shown if "Color mode" is set to "Color map" or "BGR (packed)"; sets alpha value for all points
Value min	Only shown if "Color mode" is set to any value but "Flat"; minimum value used to normalize incoming points' "Color by" field values
Value max	Only shown if "Color mode" is set to any value but "Flat"; maximum value used to normalize incoming points' "Color by" field values

RGBA color modes

When using the "BGR (packed)", "BGRA (packed)", and "RGBA (separate fields)" color modes, your point cloud message must contain certain fields to display color information for each point.

RGBA (separate fields)

For foxglove.PointCloud messages, each point can contain color information in four separate fields, named red, green, blue, and alpha, of any numeric type:

Floating-point values — 0–1 range
Unsigned integer values — Maximum possible range (e.g. 0–255 for a UINT8 field)
Signed integer values — -max to max (e.g. −127 to 127 for an INT8 field; a value of −128 is treated as identical to −127)

BGR (packed) and BGRA (packed)

For sensor_msgs/PointCloud2 messages, each point can contain color information in a single field named rgb or rgba:

Must use a 4-byte type from sensor_msgs/PointField (UINT32, value 6, is recommended)
Each red, green, blue, and alpha value is represented by one byte in the 0–255 range
Bytes must be packed in [0xBB, 0xGG, 0xRR, 0xAA] order (i.e. (0xAA << 24) | (0xRR << 16) | (0xGG << 8) | 0xBB in little-endian order). This order is compatible with RViz.

If using the "BGR" mode, the alpha value must still be present, but is ignored.

Pose

Poses in a named coordinate frame.

framework	schema
ROS 1	`geometry_msgs/PoseArray`
ROS 2	`geometry_msgs/msg/PoseArray`
ROS 1	`geometry_msgs/PoseStamped`
ROS 2	`geometry_msgs/msg/PoseStamped`
Custom	`foxglove.PosesInFrame`

Scene entity

A collection of primitive shapes (cubes, spheres, text, meshes, lines, etc) used to display anything from a basic bounding box to a complex 3D decision tree or road network.

Scene entities must be wrapped in a SceneUpdate message.

framework	schema
Custom	`foxglove.SceneEntity`
Custom	`foxglove.SceneUpdate`

Transforms

A transform (translation and rotation) between two reference frames in 3D space.

framework	schema
ROS 1	`tf/tfMessage`
ROS 1	`tf2_msgs/TFMessage`
ROS 2	`tf2_msgs/msg/TFMessage`
Custom	`foxglove.FrameTransform`

Velodyne scan

Velodyne Lidar scan packets from the Velodyne ROS driver or the Foxglove Studio desktop app's Velodyne connection.

framework	schema
ROS 1	`velodyne_msgs/VelodyneScan`
ROS 2	`velodyne_msgs/msg/VelodyneScan`

Settings

Frame

Select your 3D scene's display frame and follow mode.

field	description
Display frame	Configures the coordinate frame for rendering the scene. To render a scene element, you need a transform from its frame to the selected display frame. If its frame is the display frame, no additional transform is needed.
Follow mode	Configures the viewport following behavior. "Pose" - Follows the display frame's position and orientation "Position" - Follows the display frame's position only "Fixed" - Does not update viewport

Scene

Configure generic rendering properties and viewport properties.

field	description
Render stats	Display rendering performance statistics in panel corner
Background	Scene's background color
Label scale	Scale of rendered labels
Ignore COLLADA `<up_axis>`	Ignore the `<up_axis>` tag in COLLADA files
Mesh up axis	Direction of “up” when loading meshes (STL, OBJ) without orientation info ("Y-up", "Z-up")
Sync camera	Sync the camera states of multiple 3D panels

View

Configure the camera settings.

field	description
Distance	Distance of camera from viewport center (i.e. zoom level)
Perspective	Toggles between 3D ("on") and 2D ("off") view of the scene. The 2D view orients the camera towards z-down.
Target X	x-coordinate of viewport center
Y	y-coordinate of viewport center
Z	z-coordinate of viewport center
Theta	Camera's theta
Phi	Camera's phi
Y-Axis FOV	Camera's field of vision on y-axis
Near	Camera frustum near plane
Far	Camera frustum far plane

Transforms

Configure how to visualize transform frames and which transforms to show. Visualizing a transform tree can help debug why elements are not rendering where expected.

transforms

Use the top-level menu to toggle all transform visualizations.

Settings

field	description
Editable	Toggles in-app editing of transform frames. When "on", you can update the Translation and Rotation values to tweak transform frames, see the impact on the scene, and debug how you may want to adjust the frames on your robot. When turned "Off", will revert to original translation and rotation values.
Labels	Toggle the display of transform labels.
Axis scale	Scale of transform axis (displayed as an arrow marker)
Line width	Width of transform (displayed as a line marker)
Line color	Color of transform (displayed as a line marker)
Enable preloading	Preload transform messages from the data source.

Topics

The Topics section configures the topics displayed in the scene.

Any topic with messages matching one of the visualization formats will show up in the topics list. Each supported format has format specific visualization settings. These settings will show up under the topic.

Use the top-level menu to toggle all topics. You can toggle any individual topic by click the eye icon next to the topic name.

Custom layers

Custom layers allow you to add additional visual elements not from your data source.

Use the top-level menu to add additional custom layers.

Add Grid

A grid is 2D square with a fixed size and number of divisions. You can create any numbers of grids. Grids can be rendered relative to the display frame or any other transform frame.

grid

Use the grid layer settings to change the frame, size, color, divisions, and other properties of the grid.

Add URDF

URDF robot models are loaded automatically if your data source supports parameters (i.e. a native ROS 1 or ROS 2 connection) and the /robot_description parameter is set to valid URDF XML.

You can add additional URDF models with a custom layer. Use the layer URL setting to configure the source of the model.

Valid urls start with: http(s)://, package:// (desktop app only), or file:// (desktop app only).

Publish

Configure click-to-publish behavior for the 3D panel.

field	description
Type	Type of message to publish. Point Pose Pose estimates
Topic	Topic to publish message to – only possible with a ROS data source with publish support.

User interactions

Click any object in the scene to display its relevant details in the selected object popup.

3d panel clicked marker

Selecting an object will set a $selected_id variable to the clicked object's id value, if it has one. For ROS markers and scene entities, you can also set another variable on click.

The panel controls on the right can be used to do the following:

Select toggle object select mode
3D Toggle between 3D and 2D views of the scene
Measure measure the distance between two points

Shortcuts

To move the camera:

w – Forward
a – Left
s – Backward
d – Right
z, or Scroll up – Zoom in
x, or Scroll down – Zoom out
Drag – Parallel to the ground. Will disengage “follow” mode, if enabled.
Right-click + drag – Pan and rotate. Dragging horizontally rotates around the world's z-axis; dragging vertically pans around the x and y axes
Shift + other action – Adjusts all values to be 1/10 of baseline values; allows for more precise movements and adjustments

Additional resources

← Panels: Introduction Panels: Data Source Info →

Studio

Data Platform

3D

Introduction

Concepts

Transforms

Transform history

Transform preloading

Topics

Supported messages

Camera field-of-view

Grid

foxglove.Grid settings

RGBA (separate fields) color mode

nav_msgs/OccupancyGrid settings

Image

Laser scan

ROS polygons

ROS markers

Mesh markers

Path

Point cloud

Settings

RGBA color modes

RGBA (separate fields)

BGR (packed) and BGRA (packed)

Pose

Scene entity

Transforms

Velodyne scan

Settings

Frame

Scene

View

Transforms

Settings

Topics

Custom layers

Add Grid

Add URDF

Publish

User interactions

Shortcuts

Additional resources

`foxglove.Grid` settings

`nav_msgs/OccupancyGrid` settings