Quick Start

This guide walks through a minimal setup so you can install the SDK, verify your environment, and connect your first device.

Prerequisites

• A supported Windows, macOS, or Linux machine
• A terminal for your platform
• Python 3.12 or later (for running the examples)

License required

To install and access the SDK, you need a dedicated SDK license from Rokoko. If you do not have such a license, please contact our team at sales@rokoko.com or request access here

Install the SDK

Pick the installation method for your platform:

• Windows install guide
• macOS install guide
• Linux install guide

Navigate to the SDK environment and check the folder structure

From a terminal, run:

Windows

cd $env:ROKOKO_SDK_HOME

macOS

cd $ROKOKO_SDK_HOME

Linux

cd $ROKOKO_SDK_HOME

This should land you in the SDK root folder, which contains the following sub-folders:

• bin/ — the compiled SDK binaries and command-line tools
• examples/ — example code
• sdk/ — the C/C++ files for the SDK API

For macOS and Linux platforms, the root folder also contains one or more env files. These are generated by the installer, and should not be modified or deleted.

Note

To avoid constantly having to write

$ROKOKO_SDK_HOME on Linux/macOS, $env:ROKOKO_SDK_HOME on Windows,

we will refer to the ROKOKO_SDK_HOME environment variable with the Linux/macOS convention, i.e. as $ROKOKO_SDK_HOME in the documentation on this site.

The SDK driver

All communication and control of Rokoko devices happens through the SDK driver, an executable that is installed with the SDK. The driver provides discovery, control and streaming abstractions over the devices for user applications.

Typical use is that your application starts the driver as a child process and manages the lifetime of the driver process according to your specific needs.

In the examples we show here, we will assume you run the driver process manually and let it run as long as you need to.

Run the SDK driver

To check that the SDK driver has been correctly installed, open a terminal and run:

rkk_sdk_driver -ef 4 --pipeline_formatter rgmp_v2

This should start the driver, print version and status to the terminal and keep running while it waits for devices and applications to connect. Quit it by pressing Ctrl-C on your keyboard.

Note

The rgmp_v2 pipeline formatter is currently required to run the examples, but this may change in the future as we shift the v2 protocol to be the default. See Known issues.

Note

The -ef 4 argument is currently required to connect via USB cable, but this may change in the future as we stabilize this feature. If you also want to stream data over USB, you should use -ef 516 as the argument instead of -ef 4. See Known issues.

If your shell cannot find the driver program, double-check that you have the $ROKOKO_SDK_HOME environment variable set, and that $ROKOKO_SDK_HOME/bin is in your path.

Troubleshooting

If the driver starts but quits unexpectedly, prints an error message or equivalent, you can start the driver in 'verbose' mode, by adding '-vv' to the invocation.

rkk_sdk_driver -vv -ef 4 --pipeline_formatter rgmp_v2

Now the driver will be much more 'noisy' in the terminal, which may help in diagnosing problems. If you contact Rokoko support, we may also ask you to run the driver this way.

Run the RCSP client example with Python:

python3 examples/python/rcsp_cmd_example.py

This should list all connected devices in the terminal in json format.

Tip

You can see all the arguments the driver accepts on startup, by passing the --help argument:

rkk_sdk_driver --help

Next steps

• Set up wireless networking on your device(s) with this guide
• Review the SDK API Overview to understand how the pieces fit together
• Follow the Streaming Data guide to stream device data into your app