14 display layers
LaserScan, PointCloud2, OccupancyGrid, Octomap, Odometry, MarkerArray, Path, TF frames, robot model, maps and more — composited by a Metal 4 renderer.
Native macOS · ROS 2
Your Mac is the cockpit. The robot is the engine.
RDSM is a native macOS cockpit for ROS 2 — a Metal-rendered 3D viewport, topic inspection, TF, and logs, talking to your robot over rosbridge. No ROS install on your Mac. No Electron.
Latest release · notarized by Apple · macOS 15+ ·
release notes
Prefer to build it yourself? The core is open source —
github.com/hjatupon/rdsm-community
macOS 15 Sequoia or later
Apple Silicon + Intel
rosbridge ws://host:9090
Metal 4 renderer
What you get, free
A real cockpit, not a viewer.
Everything below ships in RDSM Community — open source under Apache 2.0, and complete enough to debug a robot with.
3D Viewport
Inspect
Topics and raw messages
Browse every topic by namespace, then read any message as an expandable JSON tree with search, freeze, and rate throttling.
Transforms
TF tree, text and diagram
See the frame hierarchy, publish rates, staleness, and per-edge transforms as your robot moves.
Robot model
URDF with meshes
Loads URDF over /robot_description or from disk, resolving
package:// mesh paths — STL, OBJ, DAE.
Command
Publish, goals, services
Send String, Twist, TwistStamped or raw JSON; drop a Nav2 goal or 2D pose estimate by dragging on the floor plane; browse and call any ROS 2 service.
Logs
/rosout, filtered
Severity filters, node and message search, auto-scroll, and a capped buffer that keeps long sessions responsive.
Editions
Same app today. Different licence.
Both editions currently ship the same, proven feature set. Community is free and open source, downloaded here. Pro is the same app sold on the Mac App Store — where it’s listed as RDSM Pro — for teams that need a purchased licence, an invoice, and managed updates. The advanced tooling below is in development and will land in Pro as it’s finished.
| Capability | Open source Community | Paid Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Visualize | ||
| 3D viewport · 14 layers | Included | Included |
| Robot model (URDF + meshes) | Included | Included |
| TF tree — text & diagram | Included | Included |
| TF Universe — immersive 3D diagnostics | — | In development |
| Inspect | ||
| Topic browser | Included | Included |
| Raw / JSON message inspector | Included | Included |
| Purpose-built visualizations | — | In development |
| Time-series plotting | — | In development |
| /rosout log viewer | Included | Included |
| Command | ||
| Publish String / Twist / raw JSON | Included | Included |
| Saved message templates | — | In development |
| Nav2 goal & 2D pose estimate | Included | Included |
| Service browser & caller | Included | Included |
| Parameter editor, diff & profiles | — | In development |
| Record & replay | ||
| Record live topics to MCAP | — | In development |
| Rosbag playback & timeline | — | In development |
| Bookmarks & annotations | — | In development |
| Connect | ||
| rosbridge connection | 1 robot | 1 robot |
| Source code | Apache 2.0 | Closed |
Build from source
Clone it, build it, change it.
The Community edition is the whole app — 28 Swift packages, no private dependencies. It builds with stock Xcode.
- Install XcodeGen — the project file is generated, so it never conflicts in review.
- Generate and build — one command each, no workspace setup.
- Bring up a robot — a Dockerized TurtleBot3 with Nav2 and rosbridge is included for testing.
# 1 — tooling brew install xcodegen # 2 — build the app git clone https://github.com/hjatupon/rdsm-community.git cd rdsm-community/app xcodegen generate --spec project.yml xcodebuild -project RDSMCommunity.xcodeproj \ -scheme RDSMCommunity build # 3 — simulated robot, then connect to # ws://localhost:9090 cd ../testing/sim-bot docker compose up -d