danruta / ros-challenges Goto Github PK

I'm a part of a research group studying how we can statically detect common errors in ros transforms. In executing our tool on public Github repositories, we noticed a possible naming convention error in several of your static transforms.

This error arises in these two transforms, first taken from Challenge 3/baxterchallenge/src/baxter_challenge/launch/baxter_world.launch [lines 58]:
<node pkg="tf" type="static_transform_publisher" name="base_to_world" args="0 0 0.930000 0 0 0 world base 100" />

and also taken from Challenge 3/baxterchallenge/src/baxter_challenge/launch/challenge.launch [line 3]:
<node pkg="tf" type="static_transform_publisher" name="base_to_world" args="0 0 0.930000 0 0 0 world base 100" />

When using a static_transform_publisher, the parent frame id precedes the child frame id [source], so the names of these static transforms indicate that the transforms go from the child to the parent, which is the inverse of the way they are actually set up.

Violating this naming convention may not lead to any incorrect behavior in these limited challenges, but our concern is that doing so may make future code reuse and maintenance more challenging, especially if the naming convention is violated in more 'mission critical' software.

We would appreciate it if you could please describe any conventions around transforms which you follow in order to maintain consistency in the project.

Thank you!