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

[Jakob Schwendner]

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.
>
> 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).
Its on the spacegit server (dfki internal) 
http://spacegit.dfki.uni-bremen.de/mars/mars_viz
That is why you didn't find it in the external package list. I don't see 
a reason though why it shouldn't be on gitorious. Only that it really is 
a HACK. Its basically running a full rigid body simulation in order to 
perform the forward kinematics calculation.

> 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.
Other than that, I agree with Sylvain and Alex, and what I pointed out 
as option (a). Would be great to have it. Would be even greater to go 
for (b), but if a lot of the work is already done (a) is absolutely more 
than welcome, and would be a good contribution to rock.

cheers,

Jakob