Inspection Docker

A Docker-based deployment environment for the MACS Lab inspection cell. This repo sets up a standardized ROS2 Humble workspace with MoveIt2 (built from source), clones all inspection cell packages, and provides desktop shortcuts for one-click bringup and development workflows.

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Overview

The container is built on osrf/ros:humble-desktop-full and includes:

• MoveIt2 built from source (baked into the image layer)
• CycloneDDS as the ROS2 middleware
• Universal Robots and Intel RealSense drivers
• A shared workspace (shared_ws/) mounted from the host, containing all inspection cell packages
• A data directory (data/) mounted from the host, containing viewpoint generation data via Git LFS

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Repository Structure

inspection-docker/
├── .env                          # Container name, ROS domain ID, GPU flag
├── install.sh                    # One-time setup script
├── launch_container.sh           # Start or attach to the container
├── run.sh                        # Start container in detached mode and run bringup
├── bringup.desktop               # Desktop shortcut: Inspection Bringup
├── devel.desktop                 # Desktop shortcut: Inspection Development
├── docker-compose.yaml           # Main Docker Compose file
├── docker-compose.nvidia.yaml    # NVIDIA GPU overlay (merged when USE_GPU=true)
├── docker/
│   ├── Dockerfile                # Image definition
│   ├── entrypoint.sh             # Sources ROS2, base_ws, and shared_ws on shell startup
│   ├── packages.txt              # APT packages installed into the base image
│   ├── overlay_packages.txt      # APT packages for the overlay (UR, RealSense)
│   └── requirements.txt          # Python pip packages
├── config/
│   └── cyclonedds.xml            # CycloneDDS tuning (buffer sizes, multicast)
├── shared_ws/
│   ├── shared.repos              # vcstool manifest for inspection cell packages
│   └── src/                      # Cloned packages (created by install.sh)
└── data/
    ├── data.repos                # vcstool manifest for data repositories
    └── ViewpointGenerationData/  # Git LFS data (cloned by install.sh)

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ROS2 Packages

All packages are cloned into shared_ws/src/ by install.sh using vcstool.

Package	Repository	Branch
ViewpointGeneration	cacton77/ViewpointGeneration	devel
Inspection_Cell	DevanshB99/Inspection_Cell	main
Inspection_Control	antara1005/Inspection_Control	main
Turntable_ROS2_Driver	DevanshB99/Turntable_ROS2_Driver	ESP32
http_image_publisher	cacton77/http_image_publisher	main

Data Repositories

Large data assets are stored in Git LFS and cloned into data/.

Repository	Branch
ViewpointGenerationData	main

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Prerequisites

• Docker with the Compose plugin
• NVIDIA Container Toolkit (if using GPU)
• terminator terminal emulator (used by desktop shortcuts)

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Installation & Building

install.sh is the main script for both initial setup and rebuilding the workspace during development:

./install.sh

The script will:

1. Auto-detect an NVIDIA GPU (override with --gpu or --no-gpu)
2. Build (or rebuild) the Docker image
3. Install vcstool and git-lfs if not present
4. Clone all packages from shared.repos into shared_ws/src/ (skipped if src/ already exists)
5. Clone data repositories from data.repos and pull Git LFS objects
6. Create desktop shortcuts (bringup.desktop, devel.desktop) on ~/Desktop
7. Increase kernel socket buffer limits for DDS performance
8. Build shared_ws inside the container

# Force GPU support
./install.sh --gpu

# Disable GPU support
./install.sh --no-gpu

Re-running install.sh during development will rebuild the Docker image (using cache) and rebuild shared_ws, making it the standard way to apply source changes.

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Usage

Interactive Development Shell

Open a bash shell inside the container (starts the container if not already running):

./launch_container.sh

If the container is already running, this attaches a new shell to it. Additional arguments are passed as a command:

./launch_container.sh colcon build
./launch_container.sh ros2 topic list

Bringup

Start the full inspection cell bringup (launches viewpoint_generation bringup.launch.py):

./run.sh

This starts the container in detached mode if needed, then attaches and runs the bringup launch file.

Desktop Shortcuts

After running install.sh, two shortcuts appear on the desktop:

• Inspection Bringup — opens a terminal and runs the bringup launch file
• Inspection Development — opens an interactive development shell

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Configuration

.env

Key environment variables read by launch_container.sh and Docker Compose:

Variable	Default	Description
CONTAINER_NAME	inspection-docker	Docker container/image name
ROS_DOMAIN_ID	2	ROS2 domain ID
USE_GPU	true	Enable NVIDIA GPU passthrough

CycloneDDS

config/cyclonedds.xml is mounted into the container at /config/cyclonedds.xml and configures CycloneDDS with tuned socket buffer sizes (10 MB send/receive) for high-bandwidth image topics.

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Workspace Layout Inside the Container

Path	Description
/workspaces/base_ws	MoveIt2 built from source (image layer, read-only at runtime)
/workspaces/shared_ws	Inspection cell packages (bind-mounted from ./shared_ws)
/data	Viewpoint generation data (bind-mounted from ./data)
/config	CycloneDDS and other runtime config (bind-mounted from ./config)

The entrypoint sources workspaces in order: ROS2 → base_ws → shared_ws.

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Updating Packages

To pull the latest changes for all packages in shared_ws:

cd shared_ws/src
vcs pull

Then re-run install.sh to rebuild the workspace:

./install.sh

Or rebuild directly inside the container without going through the full install:

./launch_container.sh colcon build