slamd 2.1.8

Python bindings for SlamDunk

---

SlamDunk is a powerful and user-friendly C++/Python library for making live 3D and 2D visualizations for prototyping, data exploration, and algorithm development.

It is very lightweight, built using OpenGL and ImGui.

Examples

Hello world

Here is a simple "hello world" program for a SlamDunk visualization.

#python
import slamd

if __name__ == "__main__":
    vis = slamd.Visualizer("Hello world")

    scene = vis.scene("scene")

    scene.set_object("/origin", slamd.geom.Triad())

    vis.hang_forever()

// C++
#include <slamd/slamd.hpp>

int main() {
    auto vis = slamd::visualizer("hello_world");

    auto scene = vis->scene("scene");

    scene->set_object("/origin", slamd::geom::triad());

    vis->hang_forever();
}

This example highlights the main components of SlamDunk.

The Visualizer object maintains the state of the visualization, and starts a TCP server that the visualization window connects to.

By default, it spawns a window process that reads from it and displays the visualizations. You can opt out of this with the spawn argument, and control the port with the port argument. In this case, you can start a window with the slamd-window executable:

slamd-window --port [port] --ip [ip]

If you are using C++, this executable is built next to the library.

This client-server architecture allows launching a visualizer a remote server, and connecting to it on your local machine.

A Scene object represents and contains a tree of 3D objects, accessed by paths like /comp1/comp2/comp3. 3D poses and Geometry objects can be assigned with the set_transform and set_object methods.

Geometry objects represent the objects that are displayed in the scene.

Running this program results in the following interactive visualization:

Multiple scenes

SlamDunk uses ImGui to allow multiple sub-windows with floating and docking support inside the SlamDunk viewer. The following example illustrates creating two windows, each showing its own scene.

# python
import slamd
import numpy as np

if __name__ == "__main__":
    vis = slamd.Visualizer("two windows")

    scene1 = vis.scene("scene 1")
    scene2 = vis.scene("scene 2")

    scene1.set_object("/box", slamd.geom.Box())

    scene2.set_object("/origin", slamd.geom.Triad())

    scene2.set_object("/ball", slamd.geom.Sphere(2.0))

    sphere_transform = np.identity(4, dtype=np.float32)
    sphere_transform[:, 3] = np.array([5.0, 1.0, 2.0, 1.0])

    scene2.set_transform("/ball", sphere_transform)

    vis.hang_forever()

// C++
#include <glm/glm.hpp>
#include <slamd/slamd.hpp>

int main() {
    auto vis = slamd::visualizer("two windows");

    auto scene1 = vis->scene("scene 1");
    auto scene2 = vis->scene("scene 2");

    scene1->set_object("/box", slamd::geom::box());

    scene2->set_object("/origin", slamd::geom::triad());
    scene2->set_object("/ball", slamd::geom::sphere(2.0f));

    glm::mat4 sphere_transform(1.0);
    sphere_transform[3] += glm::vec4(5.0, 1.0, 2.0, 1.0);

    scene2->set_transform("/ball", sphere_transform);

    vis->hang_forever();
}

The resulting window looks like this:

The windows are fully controllable - you can drag then around, make tabs, use them in floating mode, dock them to the sides like you see in the screenshot. All of this is supported by ImGui.

Further reading

The C++ examples in /examples and python examples in python_examples showcase some more features of SlamDunk. Some examples are canvases for 2D visualizations and lots of additional geometry primitives such as point clouds, meshes, camera frustums, etc.

Installation

Python

The python binding wheels are available on PyPi, so you can simply

pip install slamd

C++

With FetchContent

You can use CMake's FetchContent. Add this to your CMakeLists.txt:

include(FetchContent)

FetchContent_Declare(
  slamd
  GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/Robertleoj/slam_dunk.git
  GIT_TAG main
  SOURCE_SUBDIR slamd
)

FetchContent_MakeAvailable(slamd)

Linking to it then looks like:

target_link_libraries(
    your_target PRIVATE

    slamd::slamd
)

With git submodules

If you add the repo as a submodule in your project, you can add it as a subdirectory with

add_subdirectory(path/to/slam_dunk/slamd)

Just make sure to

git submodule update --init --recursive

inside the submodule, as all necessary dependencies are vendored.

You can then link it to your executable or library with

target_link_libraries(
    your_target PRIVATE

    slamd::slamd
)

Contributions

All contributions and feedback are welcome and apprechiated!