[Rock-dev] [Ric-mars] Fwd: Re: Robot visualization in Vizkit3D

Wed May 8 11:16:54 CEST 2013

On 05/08/2013 10:24 AM, Malte Wirkus wrote:
> Thank you all for your responses.
>
> Back to my initial question: If you are interested in what I provided.
> What I read from the responses, the majority says 'no', because there
> are better file formats available or other libraries that might be used
> for rendering.
I would not put it that way. There might be better file formats out 
there but if you are using already another one than this is just fine. I 
would really appreciate it if you go the extra mile and would make your 
work available as Plug-In. If you need any help please post to the 
mailing list.

Alex

PS: if you still on a stage where you can choose between different third 
party libraries when we can have a discussion which one might be the 
best in the context of rock.

>
> Jakob's point is interesting:
>
>   > I did a hack back then for mars models, which is in simulation/mars_viz.
>
> So, something akin is already done. Then of cause it's not necessary to
> use my software for ROCK. One could rather think about integrating URDF
> support into the existing software.
> Unfortunately I can't find it. That is maybe because I don't really know
> where to look for it (I looked at
> http://www.rock-robotics.org/master/pkg/index.html and used the search
> functionality of the ROCK website).
> As a ROCK newbie, I think it should be easier to find and use, even if
> it's not perfectly aligned with the theories on how such a software
> would look like in the optimal case. The reason for this is that I think
> a robot visualization is, a quite essential _tool_ for people working
> with robots.. as with most tools, it's better to have one than not
> having one.
>
> Best,
>
> Malte
>
>
>
> On 05/07/2013 06:23 PM, Jakob Schwendner wrote:
>> Yep, we had a discussion on this a while back. I needed exactly what you
>> are proposing now:
>> A multibody robot model with forward kinematics calculation based on
>> joint angles.
>> At that time we agreed with the Mars people that this would be a good
>> interface for starting to use the same visualisation between mars and
>> vizkit.
>> I did a hack back then for mars models, which is in simulation/mars_viz.
>> In any case, I think we discussed several ways of how we could introduce
>> this in rock:
>> (a) Vizkit plugin, that takes URDF/Collada/whatever file as a parameter,
>> and joint angles as input type. Least amount of effort, but only useful
>> for visualization.
>> (b) A more tightly integrated approach, that takes the transformer into
>> account. I think our general way of configuring and setting up robots
>> would benefit from this, too.
>> this might benefit from further discussion and could be a good
>> opportunity to get different parts working together.
>> cheers,
>> Jakob
>>
>> On May 7, 2013 at 4:44 PM Matthias Goldhoorn
>> <matthias.goldhoorn at dfki.de> wrote:
>>   > Collada was several times an good candidate not only for the
>>   > visualization also for mars (also the physics/sim part).
>>   > Since noone has time to to this this get forgotten.
>>   > If you have some free recources please grap the discussion on
>>   >
>>   > http://rock.opendfki.de/wiki/WikiStart/OngoingWork/RobotDescriptionFile
>>   >
>>   > and reply to the ML. Malte L. (ex. R.) was invited to because there was
>>   > some open questions for/with mars but i not remember them yet.
>>   >
>>   > If there _are_ free recources we should definelty define an wider used
>>   > and accepted format. There was several limitations on URDF (see link
>>   > above).
>>   >
>>   > Matthias
>>   >
>>   > On 07.05.2013 16:38, Sylvain Joyeux wrote:
>>   > > -------- Original Message --------
>>   > > Subject: Re: Robot visualization in Vizkit3D
>>   > > Date: Tue, 07 May 2013 15:47:33 +0200
>>   > > From: Sylvain Joyeux<sylvain.joyeux at dfki.de>
>>   > > Organization: DFKI RIC
>>   > > To: Malte Wirkus<malte.wirkus at dfki.de>
>>   > >
>>   > > On 05/07/2013 09:56 AM, Malte Wirkus wrote:
>>   > >> for a software project I am working on, I am developing a
>> visualization
>>   > >> of multi-body robots based on Open Scene Graph (OSG).
>>   > >> Since I did not find something similiar in ROCK's Vizkit3D, I
>> wonder if
>>   > >> you might be interested if I make this available as a Plug-In for
>> Vizkit?
>>   > >>
>>   > >> Here are some maybe relevant things about it:
>>   > >>
>>   > >> * As robot description format it used URDF
>>   > >> (http://www.ros.org/wiki/urdf)
>>   > >> * For kinematic calculation, KDL is used
>>   > >> (http://www.orocos.org/wiki/orocos/kdl-wiki)
>>   > >> * Therefor there are dependecies on OSG, URDF, a URDF parser
>> library, a
>>   > >> URDF to KDL parser library
>>   > >> * All these libraries but OSG are available in ROS
>>   > >> * It makes use of the ressource_retriever from ROS
>>   > >> (http://ros.org/wiki/resource_retriever), but can also be used
>>   > >> without. Absolute paths to the 3D meshes have to be set in the URDF
>>   > >> file then.
>>   > >>
>>   > >> Forward kinematics are calculated within the visualization.
>> Practically
>>   > >> that requires joint data (current positions) as input for the plug
>> in.
>>   > >> Having it as part of ROCK one could also say that forward
>> kinematics are
>>   > >> calculated elsewhere, and the input for the plugin would be 3D
>> poses for
>>   > >> each link of the robot. This is the way they do it in ROS (with RVIZ,
>>   > >> http://www.ros.org/wiki/rviz).
>>   > >>
>>   > >> Regards,
>>   > >>
>>   > >> Malte
>>   > >
>>   >
>>   >
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Ric-mars mailing list
> Ric-mars at dfki.de
> http://www.dfki.de/mailman/cgi-bin/listinfo/ric-mars

-- 
Dipl.-Ing. Alexander Duda
Unterwasserrobotik

DFKI Bremen
Robotics Innovation Center
Robert-Hooke-Straße 5
28359 Bremen, Germany

Phone: +49 (0)421 178-456620
Fax:   +49 (0)421 178-454150
E-Mail: alexander.duda at dfki.de

Weitere Informationen: http://www.dfki.de/robotik
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Deutsches Forschungszentrum fuer Kuenstliche Intelligenz GmbH
Firmensitz: Trippstadter Straße 122, D-67663 Kaiserslautern
Geschaeftsfuehrung: Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Wolfgang Wahlster
(Vorsitzender) Dr. Walter Olthoff
Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: Prof. Dr. h.c. Hans A. Aukes
Amtsgericht Kaiserslautern, HRB 2313
Sitz der Gesellschaft: Kaiserslautern (HRB 2313)
USt-Id.Nr.:    DE 148646973
Steuernummer:  19/673/0060/3