Live data

Connect to live data sources with the Foxglove WebSocket, Rosbridge, and Velodyne Lidar connections. You can also load remote data files via URL.

Supported formats

	Supported formats	Configuration options
Foxglove WebSocket	ROS 1 ROS 2 Custom MCAP	WebSocket URL
Rosbridge	ROS 1 ROS 2	WebSocket URL
ROS 1	ROS 1 (Desktop app only)	`ROS_MASTER_URI` and `ROS_HOSTNAME`
Velodyne Lidar	Velodyne (Desktop app only)	UDP port
Remote file	ROS 1 MCAP	Requires CORS setup

tip

If you're using ROS 1 or 2, we strongly recommend using the Foxglove bridge for the most stable experience

Limitations

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

	Foxglove WebSocket	Rosbridge	ROS 1
Stream ROS 1 data	✓	✓	✓
Stream ROS 2 data	✓	✓
Stream custom data	✓
Custom message schemas	✓	✓	✓
Publish messages	✓ (ROS 1, ROS 2, JSON)	✓	✓
Call services	✓	✓
Call actions
Read and set parameters	✓	see discussion	✓

To load remote data files, you must host your files in a server or cloud provider that supports Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) and accepts range requests.

When loading remote data into Foxglove for playback and analysis, we recommend hosting your files in a cloud provider like Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), Google Cloud Storage (GCS), or Azure Storage. You can also host files on your own server, but it may be difficult and time-consuming to set up support for Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) and range requests.

If your data is sensitive, generate and use a signed URL – make sure that you point to the resource directly, as redirects will not work with CORS:

S3 – Sharing objects using presigned URLs
GCS – Signed URLS
Azure Storage – Grant limited access to Azure Storage resources using shared access signatures (SAS)

This signed URL will work for a limited period of time. You can set up your server to only sign URLs for authenticated users.

Finally, set up your CORS configuration. Check out the following example of a Terraform config for an S3 bucket (docs):

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

And a Terraform config for a GCS bucket (docs):

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

Supported formats​

Limitations​

Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) setup​

Links and resources​

Supported formats

Limitations

Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) setup

Links and resources