New RViz 2 Plugin Adds Live 2D Plotting for ROS 2 Monitoring

A new open-source plugin, rviz_2d_plot_plugin, brings live 2D plotting directly into the RViz 2 environment as a screen-space overlay. Developed by Abdelrahman and released under the MIT license, the plugin is designed for ROS 2 Humble (with support for additional distributions planned). It allows developers to monitor topic data, controller signals, odometry values, diagnostics, and other runtime signals without switching to external plotting tools. Key features include runtime discovery of plottable ROS 2 topic fields, time-series and XY plotting, multi-series plotting from different topics, and support for reference lines, limits, setpoints, and tolerance bands. Users can also control axes, enable auto-scaling, toggle grids and legends, customize styles, configure QoS, and pause or clear plots while preserving history.

This plugin addresses a common pain point in robotics development: the need to quickly visualize data during debugging. By offering native integration with RViz 2, it reduces context switching and helps teams spot anomalies in real time. The developer invites feedback on API/design improvements, compatibility with other ROS 2 distributions, useful plotting features for robotics workflows, and packaging suggestions. The repository is available on GitHub for the ROS community to contribute and adapt. For teams using ROS 2 Humble, rviz_2d_plot_plugin promises to be a lightweight yet powerful addition to the visualization stack, streamlining data monitoring directly where robot state and sensor data are already displayed.