RViz

RViz is a 3D visualization tool for the Robot Operating System (ROS) that provides real-time visualization of sensor data, robot state, and planning information. It renders a configurable 3D scene from ROS topics and TF transforms, helping developers and operators understand what a robot perceives and how it moves.

Displays in RViz are modular and extensible. Users add displays such as PointCloud2, LaserScan, Image, Camera, Marker, InteractiveMarker, RobotModel, Pose, Path, and TF, each of which subscribes to a ROS topic or frame and presents the data in the scene. RViz can render a robot model loaded from URDF or SDF, together with joint states and transforms.

RViz provides interactive navigation of the scene, adjustable viewpoints, and the ability to manipulate objects and frames with interactive markers. It is widely used for debugging perception pipelines, visualization of robot trajectories, and validation of motion planning results.

RViz uses a plugin architecture that supports adding new display types and custom visualizations. It is part of the core ROS visualization toolset and, in ROS 2, is provided as RViz2, built on the OGRE 3D engine.

Visualization configurations can be saved and loaded from .rviz files, enabling reproducible setups for demos and development workflows. RViz remains a foundational tool for developers and researchers working with robotic perception, localization, mapping, and planning.