Timing

A small-ish timing library that is particularly useful when trying to time how long multiple runs of the same function take during loops. Based on isaac_ros_nvblox/timing: https://github.com/nvidia-isaac/nvblox/blob/7c76f90749aa26b89faeca2044fbdcabd910d0a6/nvblox/include/nvblox/utils/timing.h

Setup (Standalone)

Build and install this library

git clone <url>
cd timing
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
sudo make install

Setup (ROS)

Simply clone this repo to somewhere in your colcon_ws/src. Then, in the project that you want to use this library in, add the following lines to the CMakeLists.txt

...

find_package(timing REQUIRED)


add_executable( ... ) 
target_link_libraries( ...
   ${timing_LIBRARIES}
)
target_include_directories( ...
   ${timing_INCLUDE_DIRS}
)

Usage

The simple usage is pretty straightforward, see test/test_timing.cpp.

In the header, add the line

#include "timing/timing.h"

Whenever you want to start a timer,

timing::Timer myTimer("group/tag");

and when the object is destroyed, the timing will stop. You can also call myTimer.Stop() to stop the timer on demand. The group/tag system is used to define groups that accumulate multiple sub timers, and each tag can be used to break down the timing even furter. This means the string you use can be ros/io/get_image or core/optimization and that will help you break down the timing as desired.

To print/return the timing statistics, call

timing::Timing::Print(std::cout);

to print the timing to std::cout.

Alternatively, you can get the result as a std::string so you can pass it into a logging tool of choice. For example, to use it in ros2, simply call the print inside a throttled stream:

// print statistics every 10 seconds
constexpr int kPublishPeriodMs = 10000;
auto & clk = *get_clock();
RCLCPP_INFO_STREAM_THROTTLE(
  get_logger(), clk, kPublishPeriodMs,
  "Timing statistics: \n" << timing::Timing::Print());

Advanced Usage

See include/timing.h for all available interfaces.

If you want to create a timer without starting it immediately, run

timing::Timer myTimer("group/tag", false);

and then to start and stop the timers manually, run

myTimer.Start();
myTimer.Stop();

Disable All timers