rostopic

Show available ROS topics

rostopic list

Display information about a given ROS topic.

rostopic info /topic_name

Display messages published to a given ROS topic.

rostopic echo /topic_name

Display filtered messages published to a given ROS topic. Useful when there are different types of messages and you want to display only several of them.

rostopic echo --filter "python expression" /topic_name

Save the frame diagram for a given ROS topic. The frame diagram is saved to frames.pdf.

rosrun rostopic_name view_frames
evince frames.pdf
rmsg

Show additional information about a given message.

rmsg show message_name
rosnode

Show available ROS nodes

rosnode list

Show additional information about a given node.

rosnode info /node_name
Miscellaneous

Launch Qt-based GUI.

rqt

Sometimes the plugin cannot be detected by rqt. In this case, use the following command:

rqt --force-discover

Launch a 3D visualization tool for ROS.

rosrun rviz rviz

ROS needs to be sourced in order the commands can be run:

source path_to_setup/setup.bash

This command should be typed everytime you open a new terminal. In case you want to simplify this process, you may want to add an alias to ~/.bashrc.