/rosout and other diagnostic streams, providing insight into system behavior, warnings, and errors alongside the sensor data.
Supported Data
| Schema | Description | Typical Topics |
|---|---|---|
rosgraph_msgs/Log | ROS standard logging | /rosout, /rosout_agg |
rcl_interfaces/msg/Log | ROS 2 logging | /rosout |
| Log-type messages | Text log output | Topics containing log or /rosout |
Auto-Detection
A topic is assigned to the Log panel when:- Its schema is a recognized ROS log message type, or
- Its topic name contains
logor/rosout(note the leading slash)
Features
Severity Levels
Log messages include a severity level that indicates the importance of the message. The Log panel color-codes messages by severity for quick visual scanning.| Level | Description | Display |
|---|---|---|
| DEBUG | Detailed diagnostic information | Muted text |
| INFO | Normal operational messages | Standard text |
| WARN | Potential issues that may need attention | Yellow highlight |
| ERROR | Errors that prevented an operation | Red highlight |
| FATAL | Critical failures requiring immediate attention | Bold red highlight |
Severity Filtering
Filter the log view to show only messages at or above a specific severity level. This helps you focus on important messages in recordings that produce large volumes of debug output.- All messages
- Warnings and above
- Errors only
Show every log message regardless of severity. Useful for detailed debugging when you need the full context.
Timestamp Correlation
Every log message includes a timestamp that corresponds to the shared timeline used by all panels. This enables direct correlation between log events and sensor data:- Click a log entry to seek the entire viewer to that message’s timestamp. Camera images, point clouds, and plots all update to show the state at the moment the log was emitted.
- Current time indicator highlights log messages near the current playback position, so you can see what the system was logging at any point in the recording.
Scrolling Behavior
| Mode | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Auto-scroll | During playback, the log panel scrolls to keep the most recent messages visible |
| Manual scroll | When you scroll manually, auto-scroll pauses so you can inspect older messages |
| Resume | Click the “jump to latest” button to re-enable auto-scroll |
Common Use Cases
Error investigation
Filter for errors and correlate log timestamps with sensor data to understand what was happening when a failure occurred.
System health monitoring
Review warning and info messages to assess overall system behavior during the recording.
Sensor diagnostics
Check for sensor driver warnings, timeout messages, or data quality alerts that may affect annotation.
Debugging timing issues
Use log timestamps to identify timing problems, such as delayed sensor initialization or dropped messages.
Related
- Raw Messages Panel — Inspect the full structured content of any message
- Plot Panel — Numeric data plotted over the same timeline
- Multi-Sensor Viewer — Overview of the synchronized multi-panel layout