# Custom Variables

In most scenarios, the existing variables and factors should be sufficient for most robotics applications. Caesar however, is extensible and allows you to easily incorporate your own variable and factor types for specialized applications. Let's look at creating custom variables first.

A handy macro helps define new variables:

@defVariable(
MyVar,
TranslationGroup(2),
MVector{2}(0.0,0.0)
)

First, we define the name MyVar, then the manifold on which the variable probability estimates exist (a simple Cartesian translation in two dimensions). The third parameter is a default point for your new variable.

This new variable is now ready to be added to a factor graph:

addVariable!(fg, :myvar1, MyVar)

Another good example to look at is RoME's Pose2 with 3 degrees of freedom: $X, Y$ translation and a rotation matrix using $R(\theta)$. Caesar.jl uses JuliaManifolds/Manifolds.jl for structuring numerical operations, we can use either the Manifolds.ProductRepr (or RecursiveArrayTools.ArrayPartition), to define manifold point types:

# already exists in RoME/src/factors/Pose2D.jl
@defVariable(
Pose2,
SpecialEuclidean(2),
ArrayPartition(MVector{2}(0.0,0.0), MMatrix{2,2}(1.0,0.0,0.0,1.0))
)

Here we used Manifolds.SpecialEuclidean(2) as the variable manifold, and the default data representation is similar to Manifolds.identity_element(SpecialEuclidean(2)), or Float32[1.0 0; 0 1], etc. In the example above, we used StaticArrays.MVector, StaticArrays.MMatrix for better performance, owing to better heap vs. stack memory management.

DistributedFactorGraphs.@defVariableMacro
@defVariable StructName manifolds<:ManifoldsBase.AbstractManifold

A macro to create a new variable with name StructName and manifolds. Note that the manifolds is an object and must be a subtype of ManifoldsBase.AbstractManifold. See documentation in Manifolds.jl on making your own.

Example:

DFG.@defVariable Pose2 SpecialEuclidean(2) ProductRepr([0;0.0],[1 0; 0 1.0])
Note

Users can implement their own manifolds using the ManifoldsBase.jl API; and the tutorial. See JuliaManifolds/Manifolds.jl for general information.