spacemouse_driver

This repository provides a lightweight wrapper around libspnav, the client interface for spacenavd, to publish SpaceMouse state data as LCM messages.

Installation of Spacemouse Daemon (a low-level service that communicates directly with the hardware)

git clone https://github.com/FreeSpacenav/spacenavd
cd spacenavd
./configure
make
make install # You might need to run this command with sudo

To have the daemon start automatically on system boot, run:

sudo cp contrib/systemd/spacenavd.service /etc/systemd/system/
sudo systemctl start spacenavd

# To ensure the daemon is running, you can run
sudo systemctl status spacenavd

Building LCM Driver for SpaceMouse devices

This package uses Bazel build system, you can install Bazel by following the instruction.

Once Bazel is installed, you can build this driver as follows:

git clone https://github.com/DAIRLab/spacemouse_driver.git
cd spacemouse_driver
bazel build ... --keep_going

Running LCM Driver

After building, under spacemouse_driver directory, simply run

bazel-bin/core/run_driver --lcm_url=udpm://239.255.76.67:7667?ttl=0 --robot_name=UR10 --robot_command_rate=125

Running LCM Driver inside a Docker container

The driver communicates with the spacenavd daemon through a Unix socket at /var/run/spnav.sock. To run the driver in a Docker container, mount this socket:

Option 1: Using docker run

docker run -v /var/run/spnav.sock:/var/run/spnav.sock <image_name>

Option 2: Using docker-compose.yaml

volumes:
  - /var/run/spnav.sock:/var/run/spnav.sock

Important: The spacenavd daemon must be running on the host system for the containerized driver to function properly.