Introduction
Rewire is a drop-in ROS 2 bridge for Rerun. Stream live topics to the viewer in seconds.
Rewire connects to your ROS 2 network via DDS and Zenoh, discovers topics automatically, and streams them to Rerun for real-time visualization. The bundled Rewire Viewer is a thin extension of the official Rerun viewer that adds ROS 2 panels (Topics, Nodes, Diagnostics) — but Rewire streams to any Rerun viewer just as well.
It's a single Rust binary — no rclcpp, no setup.bash, no colcon workspaces.
The one exception: URDF mesh resolution. If you visualize a robot model with package:// mesh
URIs, source your ROS 2 environment so AMENT_PREFIX_PATH is set before running Rewire.
From zero to viewer in two commands
Install
curl -fsSL https://rewire.run/install.sh | shThe script installs both rewire (the bridge) and rewire-viewer. See
other install methods if you prefer pixi, APT or Nix.
Run
rewire recordThe Rewire Viewer launches and starts receiving every topic discovered on your network. To stream
into a Rerun viewer you already have running on another machine, use --connect host:9876 instead.
Where to next?
Quick Start
Subscribe to specific topics, save recordings, stream to a remote viewer, enable diagnostics.
First Run
What Rewire does the first time you run it, plus environment checks.
Architecture
Why Rewire isn't a ROS 2 node and how it observes the network passively.
Custom Mappings
Map any ROS 2 type to Rerun archetypes via JSON5 config — no code required.