Installation

Recommended: MCAP CLI tool

MetriCal relies on MCAP files extensively. Not only does MetriCal natively support MCAP files for data input, but it also uses MCAP as an output format for calibration results and detections. It's strongly recommended to install the MCAP CLI tool if you plan to manipulate or extract results in your own software.

Click here for the MCAP CLI installation guide.

MetriCal Installation Methods

There are two ways to install MetriCal. If you are using Ubuntu or Pop!_OS, you can install MetriCal via the apt package manager. If you are using a different operating system, or if your system configuration needs it, you can install MetriCal via Docker.

Apt Repository

Install MetriCal via Apt Repository

Tangram Vision maintains a repository for MetriCal on a private Cloudsmith instance (cloudsmith.io).

Compatible OS:

• Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa)
• Ubuntu and Pop!_OS 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish)
• Ubuntu and Pop!_OS 24.04 (Noble Numbat)

Stable Releases

metrical_install.sh

curl -1sLf \
  'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/tangram-vision/apt/setup.deb.sh' \
  | sudo -E bash
sudo apt update;
sudo apt install metrical;

Release Candidates

metrical_install_rc.sh

curl -1sLf \
  'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/tangram-vision/apt-rc/setup.deb.sh' \
  | sudo -E bash
sudo apt update;
sudo apt install metrical;

Docker

Use MetriCal with Docker

Every version of MetriCal is available as a Docker image. Even visualization features can be run from Docker using Rerun as a separate process.

For Docker

When you see a section like this in the documentation, it refers to a Docker-specific feature or method. Keep an eye out for them!

1. Install Docker

If you do not have Docker installed, follow the instructions to do so at https://docs.docker.com/get-docker/

2. Download MetriCal via Docker

There are two types of MetriCal releases. All releases can be found listed on Docker Hub.

Stable Release

Stable releases are an official version bump for MetriCal. These versions are verified and tested by Tangram Vision and MetriCal customers. They are guaranteed to have a stable API and follow SemVer. Find documentation for these releases under their version number in the nav bar.

Stable releases can be pulled using the following command:

docker pull tangramvision/cli:latest

Install a specific version with a command like:

docker pull tangramvision/cli:13.0.0

Release Candidates

Release candidates are versions of MetriCal that include useful updates, but are relatively untested or unproven and could contain bugs. As time goes on, release candidates will either evolve into stable releases or be replaced by newer release candidates.

The latest release candidate can be referenced with the dev-latest alias, and can be installed by running the following:

docker pull tangramvision/cli:dev-latest

Specific release candidates can be installed the same way you'd install any other versioned release (see above).

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With that, you should now have a MetriCal instance on your machine! We'll assume the Stable release (tangramvision/cli:latest) for the rest of the introduction.

3. Create a MetriCal Docker Alias

Throughout the documentation, you will see references to metrical in the code snippets. This is a named bash function describing a larger docker command. For convenience, it can be useful to include that function (outlined below) in your script or shell config file (e.g. ~/.bashrc):

~/.bashrc

metrical() {
    docker run --rm --tty --init --user="$(id -u):$(id -g)" \
    --volume="$MOUNT":"/datasets" \
    --volume=metrical-license-cache:/.cache/tangram-vision \
    --workdir="/datasets" \
    --add-host=host.docker.internal:host-gateway \
    tangramvision/cli:latest \
    "$@";
    }

Now you should be able to run metrical wherever!

--volume and --workdir

The --volume flag syntax represents a bridge between the host machine and the docker instance. If your data is contained within the directory /home/user/datasets, then you would replace $MOUNT with /home/user/datasets.

--workdir indicates that we're now primarily working in the /datasets directory within the docker container. All subsequent MetriCal commands are run as if from that /datasets directory.