How can I control and receive video stream from SITL drone using px4,gazebo and C++ without using ROS?

Question

I want to program a drone to fly with a C++ project using image processing analysis in real-time (using OpenCV). I want to do it with PX4, Gazebo simulator. The final goal is to run the project on a real drone using Jetson-Nano and Pixhawk drone.

I have 2 main problems.

1. I can't manage to get the video stream of the px4 drone models without using ROS. I have followed this official guide to install the relevant software (Gazebo, Px4, GCS).

2. For python we have Drone-kit library to control the drone, but I want to use C++ for my project. what are the alternatives tools instead of the Drone-kit to control drones with C++ and how I can receive the video stream from the gazebo px4 drone?

After that I tried to search for information online for hours and go through the documentations, I could not find a suitable guide or solution.

thanks.

Answer 1

Posting this as an answer after details in the comments made things more clear.

For an application like this ROS should most definitely be used. It comes with a wide range of pre-built packages and tools to enable easy localization and navigation. When looking at UAVs the MoveIt! package is a good place to look. It handles 3D navigation and has a few UAV implementations already. The Hector Quadcopter package is another good option for something like SLAM.