RViz2 Easy Slider Panel Plugin

A highly customizable RViz2 panel plugin that provides a generic slider-based UI for publishing numeric values to a ROS 2 topic.

The topic name, message type, value range, and label are fully configurable via a YAML file.

Features

• Slider to control a numeric value in a custom range.
• Pause button to set the value to 0.
• Play button to resume the last value before pause.
• Supports publishing:
  • std_msgs/msg/Int16
  • std_msgs/msg/Int32
• Custom topic name, value range, and label text via YAML config.

Installation

1. Clone the package into your ROS 2 workspace:

cd ~/ros2_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/filippo-bosi/rviz2_easy_slider.git

2. Build the package:

cd ~/ros2_ws
colcon build --packages-select rviz2_easy_slider
source install/setup.bash

3. Launch RViz2 and add the panel:

Panels → Add New Panel → rviz_easy_slider::EasySliderPanel

Configuration (YAML)

The plugin reads its configuration from:

rviz2_easy_slider/config/custom_topic.yaml

Example:

name: my_topic
label: "Value"
type: std_msgs/msg/Int32
int_value:
  min: 0
  max: 100
  default: 50

Parameters:

• name: (string) Topic name to publish to.
• label: (string) Label to display above the slider.
• type: (string) Message type (std_msgs/msg/Int16 or std_msgs/msg/Int32).
• int_value.min: (int) Minimum value for the slider.
• int_value.max: (int) Maximum value for the slider.
• int_value.default: (int) Initial/default value when the panel starts.

Publishing Behavior

The panel publishes messages to the configured topic, for example:

/my_topic  [std_msgs/msg/Int32]

The message contains a single data field representing the slider value.

Notes

• Only Int16 and Int32 message types are supported at the moment.
• If the YAML is missing or malformed, fallback defaults are used.

License

MIT License