Live Data

Connect to live data sources using Lichtblick's WebSocket, Rosbridge, and Velodyne Lidar integrations for real-time streaming. You can also load remote data files via URL for easy access and processing.

Supported formats

Limitations

When connecting to a live robotics stack, each connection will have different capabilities.

Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) setup

To load remote data files, they must be hosted on a server or cloud provider that supports Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) and range requests.

For seamless playback and analysis in Lichtblick, we recommend using cloud providers like Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage (GCS), or Azure Storage. While you can host files on your own server, setting up CORS and range request support can be complex and time-consuming.

Handling Sensitive Data

If your data is sensitive, use a signed URL to securely grant temporary access. Ensure that the URL points directly to the resource, as redirects will not work with CORS.

• S3 – Sharing objects using presigned URLs
• GCS – Signed URLs
• Azure Storage – Grant limited access with SAS

Since signed URLs expire after a set time, consider configuring your server to generate them dynamically for authenticated users.

Configuring CORS

To enable remote data loading, you need to properly configure CORS. For example, if you're using Amazon S3, you can define CORS settings using Terraform or another infrastructure-as-code tool. Check out the following example of a Terraform config for an S3 bucket:

cors_rule {
  allowed_methods = ["GET", "HEAD", "OPTIONS"]
  allowed_origins = ["https://yourdomain.com"]
  allowed_headers = ["*"]
  expose_headers = ["ETag", "Content-Type", "Accept-Ranges", "Content-Length"]
}

And a Terraform config for a GCS bucket:

cors {
  origin = ["https://yourdomain.com"]
  method = ["GET", "HEAD", "OPTIONS"]
  response_header = ["ETag", "Content-Type", "Accept-Ranges", "Content-Length"]
}