ContactDB: Analyzing and Predicting Grasp Contact via Thermal Imaging

A step-by-step guide to processing your own data to create contact maps.

1. Run scripts/make_object_dirs.py

2. Run scripts/flip_object.py if you want to apply a constant flip to all objects. We typically use dy = 5.

3. Go through the object directories and check that the object orientation matches the PLY model. If not, add flipping information to its object_flip.txt. Imagine the PLY model's axes will be laid out on the turntable like so: X (right), Y (forward), Z (up). For 180 degree flips, prefer to flip along the shift axis (Y axis typically).

4. If you don't want a particular view to be included in a merge, delete its merge.txt.

5. Sometimes, you will have to exclude some views from the ICP process. You can do that by adding their ID (e.g. 00, 02, ...) to excluded_views.txt. This is typically needed where you can't see enough information to disambiguate the pose.

6. first_view.txt: Specify the view corresponding to the information in object_flip.txt. Necessary for aligning multiple scans of rotationally symmetric objects, and to disambiguate the pose of 180 degree 'flippable' objects like cell phone. A random first view is chosen if this file is empty.

7. Once you are done processing the session, use scripts/delete_pointclouds.py to delete all the pointclouds, they occupy a lot of disk space