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Viewer Backends

Dimos uses Rerun for visualizations. It can be disabled by using dimos --viewer none ....

Blueprints add Rerun stream visualization with vis_module(...), which renders typed robot streams according to GlobalConfig.viewer.

Quick Start

Choose your viewer via the CLI:

# Rerun native viewer - dimos-viewer with built-in teleop + click-to-navigate
dimos run unitree-go2

# Disable visualization:
dimos --viewer none run unitree-go2

Control how the Rerun viewer opens with --rerun-open and --rerun-web:

# Open native desktop viewer (default)
dimos --rerun-open native run unitree-go2

# Open web viewer in browser
dimos --rerun-open web run unitree-go2

# Open both native and web
dimos --rerun-open both run unitree-go2

# No viewer (headless): data still accessible via gRPC
dimos --rerun-open none run unitree-go2

# Serve the web viewer without auto-opening a browser
dimos --rerun-web --rerun-open native run unitree-go2

Viewer Modes Explained

Rerun Native (rerun, --rerun-open native), the default

What you get: - dimos-viewer, a custom Dimensional fork of Rerun with built-in keyboard teleop and click-to-navigate - Native desktop application (opens automatically) - Better performance with larger maps/higher resolution - No browser or web server required

Rerun Web (rerun, --rerun-open web)

What you get: - Browser-based dashboard at http://localhost:7779 - Rerun 3D viewer + command center sidebar in one page - Teleop controls and goal setting via the web UI - Works headless (no display required)

Rendering with Custom Blueprints

To enable visualization in your own blueprint, use vis_module:

from dimos.core.coordination.blueprints import autoconnect
from dimos.core.global_config import global_config
from dimos.hardware.sensors.camera.module import CameraModule
from dimos.visualization.vis_module import vis_module

camera_demo = autoconnect(
    CameraModule.blueprint(),
    vis_module(viewer_backend=global_config.viewer),
)

Run the stack locally (this blocks until you stop the process):

from dimos.core.coordination.module_coordinator import ModuleCoordinator

if __name__ == "__main__":
    ModuleCoordinator.build(camera_demo).loop()

Every LCM stream, such as color_image (output by CameraModule), that uses a data type (like Image) that has a .to_rerun method will get rendered (rr.log) using the LCM topic as the rerun entity path. In other words: to render something, simply log it to a stream and it will automatically be available in rerun.

Performance Tuning

Symptom: Slow Map Updates

If you notice: - Robot appears to "walk across empty space" - Costmap updates lag behind the robot - Visualization stutters or freezes

This happens on lower-end hardware (NUC, older laptops) with large maps.

Increase Voxel Size

Edit dimos/robot/unitree/go2/blueprints/smart/unitree_go2.py:

# Before (high detail, slower on large maps)
voxel_mapper(voxel_size=0.05),  # 5cm voxels

# After (lower detail, 8x faster)
voxel_mapper(voxel_size=0.1),   # 10cm voxels

Trade-off: - Larger voxels = fewer voxels = faster updates - But slightly less detail in the map

Direct Visualization from a Module

If you want to log data to Rerun directly from inside a module (e.g. for debugging or one-off visualizations), use rerun_init instead of calling rr.init() yourself. It handles colormap registration and can optionally start a gRPC server so a viewer can connect.

import rerun as rr
from dimos.visualization.rerun.init import rerun_init

# Basic init, no gRPC server (use when RerunBridgeModule is already running)
rerun_init()
rr.log("debug/my_points", rr.Points3D(positions=[[1, 2, 3]]))

# Start a gRPC server so a viewer can connect.  `grpc_config` is required
# whenever start_grpc=True; it carries the connect URL and the server memory cap.
rerun_init(
    start_grpc=True,
    grpc_config={
        "connect_url": "rerun+http://127.0.0.1:9999/proxy",
        "server_memory_limit": "4GB",
    },
)
# Then connect with: dimos-viewer --connect rerun+http://127.0.0.1:9999/proxy

When a RerunBridgeModule is already part of your blueprint, you typically don't need start_grpc. Just call rerun_init() and log directly with rr.log(). The data will appear in the existing viewer.

How to use Rerun on dev (and the TF/entity nuances)

Rerun on dev is module-driven: modules decide what to log, and Blueprint.build() sets up the shared viewer + default layout.