Distro	Build dev	Release
ROS 2 Humble (u22.04)
ROS 2 Jazzy (u24.04)
ROS 2 Kilted (u24.04)
ROS 2 Rolling (u24.04)

EOL Distro	Last Release
ROS 1 Noetic @ u20.04
ROS 2 Iron (u22.04)

DEPRECATED: Move to mrpt3 as of May-2026

mrpt-ros

Migration guide: mrpt_ros (MRPT 2.x) → native MRPT 3.x packages

Starting with MRPT 3.0, the upstream MRPT/mrpt repository is itself a colcon-friendly multi-package workspace, so the mrpt_ros wrapper is no longer needed. Downstream ROS 2 packages should depend directly on the native mrpt_<module> packages shipped by MRPT 3.x.

Package names do not collide: this old wrapper (mrpt_ros) uses the mrpt_lib* family, while MRPT 3.x exposes one ROS package per C++ module (mrpt_core, mrpt_math, ...).

1. package.xml — dependency renaming

Replace every <depend>mrpt_lib*</depend> with the fine-grained module(s) actually used:

mrpt_ros (2.x)	MRPT 3.x native packages
mrpt_libbase	mrpt_io, mrpt_serialization, mrpt_system, mrpt_rtti, mrpt_containers, mrpt_typemeta, mrpt_random, mrpt_config, mrpt_expr
mrpt_libmath	mrpt_math
mrpt_libposes	mrpt_poses (+ mrpt_tfest, mrpt_bayes if used)
mrpt_libobs	mrpt_obs (+ mrpt_topography if used)
mrpt_libmaps	mrpt_maps (+ mrpt_graphs if used)
mrpt_libopengl	mrpt_opengl (+ mrpt_img)
mrpt_libgui	mrpt_gui
mrpt_libnav	mrpt_nav (+ mrpt_kinematics)
mrpt_libslam	mrpt_slam (+ mrpt_vision)
mrpt_libhwdrivers	mrpt_hwdrivers (+ mrpt_comms)
mrpt_libapps	mrpt_libapps_cli, mrpt_libapps_gui
mrpt_apps	mrpt_apps_cli / mrpt_apps_gui
mrpt_libtclap	Removed, see below. Migrate the CLI parsing in user code to CLI11 (cli11-dev on Ubuntu/Debian) or an equivalent (e.g. argparse, cxxopts).
python_mrpt	Removed: Each package now has its own pybind11-bindings.

Example diff for a typical downstream package:

 <package format="3">
   <name>my_ros_node</name>
   ...
-  <depend>mrpt_libmath</depend>
-  <depend>mrpt_libposes</depend>
-  <depend>mrpt_libmaps</depend>
-  <depend>mrpt_libtclap</depend>
+  <depend>mrpt_math</depend>
+  <depend>mrpt_poses</depend>
+  <depend>mrpt_maps</depend>
+  <depend>cli11</depend>   <!-- replaces the dropped mrpt_libtclap; pick your preferred CLI lib -->
 </package>

2. CMakeLists.txt — find_package and target renaming

In MRPT 3.x, the CMake package names use underscores (matching the ROS package names) and the exported imported targets are mrpt::mrpt_<module> (not mrpt::<module>):

-find_package(mrpt-math   REQUIRED)
-find_package(mrpt-poses  REQUIRED)
-find_package(mrpt-maps   REQUIRED)
-find_package(mrpt-tclap  REQUIRED)
+find_package(mrpt_math   REQUIRED)
+find_package(mrpt_poses  REQUIRED)
+find_package(mrpt_maps   REQUIRED)
+find_package(CLI11       REQUIRED)    # or argparse / cxxopts

 add_executable(my_node src/main.cpp)
 target_link_libraries(my_node PRIVATE
-  mrpt::math
-  mrpt::poses
-  mrpt::maps
-  mrpt::tclap
+  mrpt::mrpt_math
+  mrpt::mrpt_poses
+  mrpt::mrpt_maps
+  CLI11::CLI11
 )

The mechanical rules are:

• find_package(mrpt-<X>) → find_package(mrpt_<X>)
• mrpt::<X> → mrpt::mrpt_<X>

3. Dropped: mrpt-tclap / mrpt_libtclap

MRPT 3.x no longer vendors TCLAP. Downstream code that parsed command-line arguments via #include <mrpt/3rdparty/tclap/CmdLine.h> must migrate to an externally-packaged CLI library. The recommended replacement is CLI11 (single-header, actively maintained, packaged in Ubuntu as libcli11-dev, rosdep key cli11). Alternatives: argparse, cxxopts, or the system TCLAP package (libtclap-dev) if you want to minimize code changes.

Minimal port sketch (TCLAP → CLI11):

// Before (TCLAP, via the removed mrpt_libtclap):
#include <mrpt/3rdparty/tclap/CmdLine.h>
TCLAP::CmdLine cmd("my tool", ' ', "1.0");
TCLAP::ValueArg<std::string> arg_in("i", "input", "input file", true, "", "file", cmd);
cmd.parse(argc, argv);
const std::string in = arg_in.getValue();

// After (CLI11):
#include <CLI/CLI.hpp>
CLI::App app{"my tool"};
std::string in;
app.add_option("-i,--input", in, "input file")->required();
CLI11_PARSE(app, argc, argv);

4. Transition period

During the cutover, the legacy mrpt_ros packages will remain released on the ROS build farm for already-released ROS distros, but no new features will land here. New downstream releases should target MRPT 3.x directly.

Mapping between ROS packages <==> MRPT C++ libraries

These are the <depend>...</depend> tags you need to include in your project package.xml depending on what C++ libraries you use:

ROS 2 package name	Included MRPT libraries
<depend>mrpt_libbase</depend>	mrpt-io, mrpt-serialization, mrpt-random, mrpt-system, mrpt-rtti, mrpt-containers, mrpt-typemeta, mrpt-core, mrpt-random, mrpt-config, mrpt-expr
<depend>mrpt_libgui</depend>	mrpt-gui
<depend>mrpt_libhwdrivers</depend>	mrpt-hwdrivers, mrpt-comms
<depend>mrpt_libapps</depend>	mrpt-apps
<depend>mrpt_libmaps</depend>	mrpt-maps, mrpt-graphs
<depend>mrpt_libmath</depend>	mrpt-math
<depend>mrpt_libnav</depend>	mrpt-nav, mrpt-kinematics
<depend>mrpt_libobs</depend>	mrpt-obs, mrpt-topography
<depend>mrpt_libopengl</depend>	mrpt-opengl, mrpt-img
<depend>mrpt_libposes</depend>	mrpt-poses, mrpt-tfest, mrpt-bayes
<depend>mrpt_libros_bridge</depend>	mrpt-ros2bridge (Moved to its own repo)
<depend>mrpt_libslam</depend>	mrpt-slam, mrpt-vision
<depend>mrpt_libtclap</depend>	mrpt-tclap
<depend>mrpt_apps</depend>	Executable applications: RawLogViewer, rawlog-edit, rawlog-grabber, SceneViewer3D, etc.
<depend>python_mrpt</depend>	pymrpt wrapper

Keep in mind that including one C++ library automatically includes all its dependencies, so you do not need to list them all:

Usage

To get binary packages via apt install from the ROS build farm, install required packages like:

sudo apt install ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-mrpt-libbase  # or any other as needed

Alternatively, if you need to build MRPT from sources (active MRPT developers & testers only), clone this repo and build with colcon as usual:

cd ~/ros2_ws/src
git clone --recursive https://github.com/MRPT/mrpt_ros.git

cd ~/ros2_ws/
rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -r -y

colcon build --symlink-install --parallel-workers 2 --cmake-args -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo

Build status matrix

Package	ROS 2 Humble BinBuild	ROS 2 Jazzy BinBuild	ROS 2 Kilted BinBuild	ROS 2 Rolling BinBuild
mrpt_apps
mrpt_libapps
mrpt_libbase
mrpt_libgui
mrpt_libhwdrivers
mrpt_libmaps
mrpt_libmath
mrpt_libnav
mrpt_libobs
mrpt_libopengl
mrpt_libposes
mrpt_libslam
mrpt_libtclap

Motivation for this repository vs older mrpt2 package

• Faster build times (for each individual package). It was common to see ROS build farms to time out.
• Finer grained dependencies: ROS users can now specify in their <depend> tags a part of MRPT only, not the whole thing.

So, the ROS package mrpt2 is obsolete now (Jul, 2024).

License

BSD-3