How to Run Perception Module on Your Local Computer

The perception module requires Nvidia GPU and CUDA installed to run the perception algorithms with Caffe. We have already installed the CUDA and Caffe libraries in the released docker. However, the Nvidia GPU driver is not installed in the released dev docker image. To run the perception module with CUDA acceleration, we suggest to install the exactly same version of Nvidia driver in the docker as the one installed in your host machine, and build Apollo with GPU option.

We provide a step-by-step instruction on running perception module with Nvidia GPU as below:

1. Get into the docker container via:

   $APOLLO_HOME/docker/scripts/dev_start.sh
   $APOLLO_HOME/docker/scripts/dev_into.sh

2. Build Apollo

   ./apollo.sh build_opt_gpu

3. Run bootstrap.sh

   bootstrap.sh

4. Launch Dreamview from your web browser by typing following address http://localhost:8888/

5. Select your car and map using the dropdowm options in the top right corner in Dreamview

6. Select the transform button in Dreamview or type the following command in your terminal

   cyber_launch start /apollo/modules/transform/launch/static_transform.launch

7. If the image is compressed, launch the image decompression module

   cyber_launch start modules/drivers/tools/image_decompress/launch/image_decompress.launch

8. Launch the perception modules

   • If you want to launch all modules

   cyber_launch start /apollo/modules/perception/production/launch/perception_all.launch
   • If you want to test camera-based obstacle and lane detection

   cyber_launch start /apollo/modules/perception/production/launch/perception_camera.launch

   If you want to visualize camera-based results overlaid on the captured image and in bird view, mark enable_visualization: true in ‘modules/perception/production/conf/perception/camera/fusion_camera_detection_component.pb.txt befor executing the above command. It will pop up when you play recorded data in point 9 Also, If you want to enable CIPO, add ‘enable_cipv: true’ as a new line in the same file

   • If you want to test lane detection alone use

   mainboard -d ./modules/perception/production/dag/dag_streaming_perception_lane.dag

   If you want to visualize lane results overlaid on the captured image and in bird view, mark enable_visualization: true in modules/perception/production/conf/perception/camera/lane_detection_component.config before executing the above command. It will pop up when you play recorded data in point 9

   • If you want to test traffic light detection module alone use

   cyber_launch start /apollo/modules/perception/production/launch/perception_trafficlight.launch

   If you want to visualize the traffic light detection results overlaid on the captured image, mark —start_visualizer=true in apollo/modules/perception/production/conf/perception/perception_common.flag before executing the above command. It will pop up when you play recorded data in point 9

9. Play your recorded bag

   cyber_recorder play -f /apollo/data/bag/anybag -r 0.2

Please note that the Nvidia driver should be installed appropriately even if the perception module is running in Caffe CPU_ONLY mode (i.e., using ./apollo.sh build or ./apollo.sh build_opt to build the perception module). Please see the detailed instruction of perception module in the perception README.