Serialization

When messages are exchanged between processes in Basis, they must be serialized by the publisher and deserialized by the subscriber. In Basis, this is accomplished using a serializer plugin. The serialization format and the corresponding serializer plugin are determined by the prefix of the type field in the Unit's configuration.

For example, in the following Unit configuration YAML, the /camera input uses the ROS Message (rosmsg) serializer, while the /lidar input uses Protocol Buffers (protobuf):

inputs:
  /camera:
    type: rosmsg:sensor_msgs::Image
  /lidar:
    type: protobuf:SensorMsgs::PointCloud

Basis provides built-in support for ROS and Protocol Buffers serializers. Additional serializers can be easily added by developers through the creation of custom serializer plugins.