ROS 2 Visualiser for Visual Studio Code

rqt-style ROS 2 introspection and visualisation tools inside Visual Studio Code.

Author: Myeongjin Lee (menggu1234@naver.com)

Overview

ROS 2 Visualiser brings the everyday rqt tools into VS Code panels, next to your code. It starts one small Python process that uses the rclpy of your ROS 2 installation, so every message, service and parameter type of your workspace works without code generation. ROS 2 must be installed on the machine that runs the extension.

What you can do:

• See the node graph, with nodes, topics and the connections between them.
• Monitor every topic's rate, bandwidth, message size and publishers/subscribers, and read live messages.
• View camera images, depth images, occupancy grids, point clouds and laser scans.
• Plot any numeric field of any topic.
• Call services, publish messages, and read or change node parameters.
• Filter /rosout logs, inspect the TF tree, and view the robot model from a URDF or xacro file.

 VS Code panels (graph, topics, image, 3D, plot, URDF, ...)
        ▲  JSON + binary frames
        │
 extension host ──spawns──▶ python3 ros_backend.py (rclpy node "_vscode_ros_vis_<pid>")
                                  │  DDS (your ROS_DOMAIN_ID)
                                  ▼
                          ROS 2 nodes on the network

Supports

Platform	Status	Notes
Ubuntu 24.04, ROS 2 Jazzy, rmw_fastrtps_cpp		Development platform. Backend protocol, extension host and UI tests run here.
Other ROS 2 distributions (Humble, Kilted, Rolling)		Uses only public rclpy APIs. Not yet verified.
Other RMW implementations (Cyclone DDS, Zenoh)		The backend is RMW-agnostic. Select one with rosVis.rmwImplementation.
VS Code Remote (SSH, WSL, Dev Containers)		The extension runs on the remote host, so ROS 2 must be installed there.
Windows, macOS		Not in scope. Sourcing setup scripts assumes bash.

Contents

• Overview
  • Supports
• Quick Start
• 1. Package Layout
• 2. Installation
  • 2.1 Requirements
  • 2.2 Install the extension
  • 2.3 Check
  • 2.4 Uninstall
• 3. Usage
  • 3.1 Sidebar and status bar
  • 3.2 Node Graph
  • 3.3 Topic Monitor
  • 3.4 Image View
  • 3.5 3D / Point Cloud
  • 3.6 Plot
  • 3.7 URDF Viewer
  • 3.8 TF Tree
  • 3.9 Console
  • 3.10 Service Caller, Publisher, Parameters
  • 3.11 Demo data
• 4. Configuration
  • 4.1 Settings
  • 4.2 How the backend is started
• 5. Safety
• 6. Files and Data
• 7. Troubleshooting
• 8. Performance
• 9. Known Limitations
• 10. License
• 11. Third-Party Notices

Quick Start

$ source /opt/ros/jazzy/setup.bash
$ ros2 node list                                   # nodes you expect to see
$ code --install-extension mjlee111.ros2-visualiser
$ code ~/my_ws                                     # a workspace with install/setup.bash, or any folder

Click the ROS 2 icon in the Activity Bar and pick a tool. The status bar shows ROS jazzy · D<domain> · <n> nodes · <m> topics once the backend is connected. If it shows ROS backend error, see §7.

1. Package Layout

The extension is published on the Visual Studio Marketplace as mjlee111.ros2-visualiser. Each version is one package file, ros2-visualiser-<version>.vsix. It contains:

ros2-visualiser-<version>.vsix
└── extension/
    ├── package.json               manifest: commands, views, settings
    ├── README.md                  this document
    ├── CHANGELOG.md               release history
    ├── LICENSE.txt                MIT license (§10)
    ├── THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md     licenses of bundled libraries (§11)
    ├── dist/extension.js          extension host code
    ├── dist/webview/*.js, *.css   panel UIs, include three.js and cytoscape (§11)
    ├── python/ros_backend.py      rclpy backend, started by the extension
    ├── python/demo_sensors.py     demo publisher (§3.11)
    ├── python/demo_robot.py       demo robot model used by demo_sensors.py
    └── media/                     icons

The extension has no runtime dependencies other than VS Code and a ROS 2 installation.

2. Installation

2.1 Requirements

2.2 Install the extension

Open the Extensions view, search for ROS 2 Visualiser (publisher mjlee111), and click Install. Or, from a terminal:

$ code --install-extension mjlee111.ros2-visualiser

VS Code updates the extension automatically when a new version is published.

Offline install from a .vsix file

$ code --install-extension ros2-visualiser-<version>.vsix

Alternatively, open the Extensions view, choose ... > Install from VSIX..., and select the file. To reinstall a build with the same version number, add --force.

2.3 Check

The status bar shows the connection:

ROS jazzy · D0 · 7 nodes · 23 topics

Run ROS: Show Backend Log from the Command Palette. The ROS 2 Visualiser output channel logs the backend start:

starting backend: /usr/bin/python3
[ros_backend] started {"distro": "jazzy", "rmw": "rmw_fastrtps_cpp", "domainId": 0, ...}

2.4 Uninstall

$ code --uninstall-extension mjlee111.ros2-visualiser

The extension stores nothing outside VS Code's own panel state (§6).

3. Usage

3.1 Sidebar and status bar

The ROS 2 view in the Activity Bar has two sections:

• Tools opens each panel.
• Graph Explorer lists nodes (with their publishers, subscribers, services, clients and actions), topics, services and actions. Right-click an item to monitor, plot, publish, call, open its parameters, view an image or point cloud topic, or show the interface definition. Nodes that share an exact name are marked with a warning.

Click the ROS item in the status bar for a quick list of tools. All commands are in the Command Palette under the ROS category.

3.2 Node Graph

The rqt_graph equivalent.

• Nodes, Active (topics with both a publisher and a subscriber) and All topics views. Topics that only have publishers or only subscribers are drawn dashed.
• Filters hide debug topics, TF, dead sinks, topics without publishers, and hidden nodes (_ prefix). They can also group nodes by namespace and show the rate of every topic.
• The filter box takes comma-separated names or regular expressions. Prefix a term with - to exclude it.
• Click a node or topic for details. Double-click a topic to open it in the Topic Monitor, or a node to open its parameters. PNG saves the graph as an image.

3.3 Topic Monitor

The rqt_topic equivalent.

• Every topic with its type, publisher and subscriber count, rate, bandwidth and message size. Tick a topic, or Monitor all, to measure it.
• Select a topic to see:
  • the period (mean, min, max, standard deviation)
  • the delay against header.stamp
  • the publishers and subscribers, with their QoS
  • the live message tree
• Pause the message tree, copy the message as YAML or JSON, or click 📈 next to a numeric field to plot it.

Rate and bandwidth are measured on serialized messages, so watching a 30 MB/s camera topic costs no deserialization.

3.4 Image View

The rqt_image_view equivalent.

• sensor_msgs/Image: rgb8, bgr8, rgba8, bgra8, 16-bit colour, mono8, mono16, 8UC1/3/4, 8SC1, 16UC1, 16SC1, 32SC1, 32FC1, 64FC1, Bayer and YUV 4:2:2.
• sensor_msgs/CompressedImage (JPEG, PNG, compressedDepth) and nav_msgs/OccupancyGrid.
• Depth and float images use a colormap with automatic or manual range.
• Zoom with the mouse wheel, pan by dragging, 1:1 for actual pixels. Hover for pixel coordinates and values. PNG saves the current frame.

3.5 3D / Point Cloud

• sensor_msgs/PointCloud2 with any field layout and sensor_msgs/LaserScan.
• Colour by packed RGB/RGBA or by any field (intensity, z, range, ...), with selectable colormaps.
• Point size, a point budget (the backend decimates large clouds), and decay to accumulate several scans.
• Drag to orbit, right-drag or shift-drag to pan, use the wheel to zoom. Fit and Top reset the view. ROS conventions apply: Z is up, the grid is the XY plane.

3.6 Plot

The rqt_plot equivalent.

• Add topic + field pairs. Field names autocomplete from the message definition (data, pose.position.x, ranges[3], ...).
• Time axis from receive time or from header.stamp. Window from 5 s to 300 s, automatic or fixed Y range.
• Hover for values, click a legend item to hide it, CSV exports the visible data.

3.7 URDF Viewer

The robot model can come from three sources:

• Live robot: the /robot_description topic, or the robot_description parameter of robot_state_publisher.
• File: right-click a .urdf or .xacro file in the Explorer, or use the editor title button, and choose Open in URDF Viewer. Xacro files are expanded with the xacro executable. Saving any .urdf, .xacro, .yaml or .xml file reloads the view, so you can edit a URDF and see the result.

Display and joints:

• Joints follow any sensor_msgs/JointState topic. The status bar shows how many joint names matched the URDF and lists the names that did not.
• With sliders as the joint source, joints are moved locally and nothing is published.
• Meshes (STL, Collada, OBJ, glTF binary) are resolved through package://, file:// or paths relative to the URDF file.
• Mimic joints, collision geometry, link frames and opacity are supported. Click a link to see its parent joint and its pose in the root frame.

3.8 TF Tree

The rqt_tf_tree equivalent.

• /tf and /tf_static as a tree, with the update rate of each dynamic transform. Static transforms are dashed.
• Stale transforms are highlighted, and more than one root is reported.
• Lookup shows the transform between any two frames, like tf2_echo.

3.9 Console

The rqt_console equivalent.

• /rosout with per-level toggles and counts, a node filter, and include/exclude text or /regex/ filters.
• Click a row for details. Double-click it to open the source file at the logged line, when that file exists on this machine.

3.10 Service Caller, Publisher, Parameters

• Service Caller: pick a service, edit the request as JSON (prefilled from the type), call with a timeout, and inspect the response and the call history.
• Publisher: one or more publishers with a JSON message, a rate or Send once, automatic header.stamp, and QoS. Edit and Apply while publishing. See §5.
• Parameters: list, read and set the parameters of any node. Declared ranges become sliders, and read-only parameters are locked. Copy YAML gives a ros2 param dump-style file.

3.11 Demo data

The extension ships a demo publisher. It publishes:

• camera, depth and compressed images
• a point cloud, a laser scan and an occupancy grid
• scalars, a pose, TF and logs
• a small robot with meshes (/robot_description, /joint_states)

It also offers services and parameters. Run it in an isolated domain:

$ export ROS_DOMAIN_ID=87 ROS_AUTOMATIC_DISCOVERY_RANGE=LOCALHOST
$ /usr/bin/python3 ~/.vscode/extensions/mjlee111.ros2-visualiser-<version>/python/demo_sensors.py

Set rosVis.domainId to 87, or start VS Code from the same shell, to see it.

4. Configuration

4.1 Settings

Open File > Preferences > Settings and search for rosVis. Changing any of these restarts the backend.

Panel options, such as graph filters, plot series, publisher definitions and the URDF source, are saved per panel and restored when VS Code restarts.

4.2 How the backend is started

1. Interpreter: rosVis.pythonPath, or /usr/bin/python3, or python3.
2. Environment: if rosVis.setupScripts is set, those scripts are sourced with bash. Otherwise VS Code's own environment is used. If ROS is not sourced there, for example when VS Code was started from the desktop, /opt/ros/<distro>/setup.bash is found automatically, preferring $ROS_DISTRO.
3. Workspace overlay: with rosVis.autoSourceWorkspace, install/setup.bash of each open workspace folder is sourced as well.
4. rosVis.domainId and rosVis.rmwImplementation are applied on top.

If the backend crashes, it is restarted automatically, up to four times a minute. ROS: Restart ROS Backend restarts it by hand.

5. Safety

Publisher, Service Caller and Parameters act on the live ROS domain shown in the status bar (D<id>), exactly like their rqt equivalents. Messages, service calls and parameter changes reach every node on that domain, including real hardware.

• The Publisher panel shows the active domain and RMW, and only publishes after an explicit Start or Send once.
• A panel's publishers stop when the panel closes, on Stop all, and when the backend stops. They are never restarted automatically.
• The URDF Viewer's sliders never publish joint states.
• Panels can only run this extension's own rosVis.* commands.

For experiments, use an isolated domain (rosVis.domainId) or ROS_AUTOMATIC_DISCOVERY_RANGE=LOCALHOST.

6. Files and Data

• The extension writes files only where you choose in a save dialog (graph PNG, image PNG, plot CSV).
• The backend reads URDF/xacro files you open, and mesh and texture files (.stl, .dae, .obj, .glb, .gltf, .ply, image formats) referenced by a URDF. It refuses to serve other file types to the panels.
• The backend creates one ROS node, _vscode_ros_vis_<pid>, which is hidden in the graph views. It subscribes only to the topics shown in open panels.
• The extension makes no internet requests.

7. Troubleshooting

Messages appear in a notification, in the panel, or in the ROS 2 Visualiser output channel (ROS: Show Backend Log).

8. Performance

Measured on Ubuntu 24.04, ROS 2 Jazzy, AMD Ryzen 9 9900X, with the demo publisher. Panels ran in Chrome with software WebGL through the development harness, not inside VS Code.

Image and point cloud panels keep at most one frame in flight, so a slow or hidden panel never builds up a backlog.

9. Known Limitations

• Actions are listed, but goals cannot be sent. Bag recording and playback (rqt_bag) are not included.
• The 3D view shows one topic per panel, in that topic's frame. It does not apply TF and does not draw markers.
• The URDF Viewer places links from joint states only (no TF mode) and does not load textures.
• Plot fields address single values. Whole arrays cannot be plotted.
• Other ROS 2 distributions, other RMW implementations and VS Code Remote have not been tested (see Supports).

10. License

Copyright (c) 2026 Myeongjin Lee.

Released under the MIT License. The full text is in LICENSE. You may use, copy, modify and redistribute the software, provided the copyright and license notices, including those in §11, stay in place. The software is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind.

ROS and ROS 2 are trademarks of Open Robotics. This extension is not affiliated with or endorsed by Open Robotics or the ROS project.

11. Third-Party Notices

dist/webview/*.js include the following open-source components, all under the MIT License. The full license texts are in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.