What is rosbag_timing_inspector?

rosbag_timing_inspector is a desktop tool for people working with ROS 2, the robotics framework used to build software for robots. When robots run, they record data streams called bags, which store timestamped messages from sensors and other parts of the system. This tool gives you a visual way to look inside those bags and see exactly when each message arrived, without needing to understand what the messages actually contain. The main screen is a timeline. Each message shows up as a dot, placed by time on one axis and by topic, meaning the data channel it belongs to, on the other. You can zoom in, pan around, and turn topics on or off to focus on what matters. A measure mode lets you click twice on the timeline to mark two points and read the exact time gap between them, which is useful for spotting delays or gaps in sensor data. A second tab turns the same data into histograms and statistics tables, showing how often each topic sends messages and how consistent that timing is. One notable choice in how it works: the tool never tries to read the actual content of the messages, only their timestamps and topic names. That means it can open bag files even when the message formats are unusual or the software that created them is not installed on your machine. It supports both common ROS 2 bag formats.mcap and .db3. Getting it running requires a ROS 2 environment, the README mentions Jazzy, a specific ROS 2 release, plus a system library called GLFW, and it is built using the colcon tool that ROS 2 projects typically use. Some supporting graphics libraries are downloaded automatically during the build, so they do not need to be installed by hand. This is aimed at robotics engineers and researchers who need to debug timing problems, such as sensor data arriving late or unevenly, rather than general software developers with no robotics background. The project is released under the MIT license, meaning it can be used freely, including for commercial projects, as long as the original copyright notice is kept.