manip-env-visu

Barebones library to visualize simple manipulation environments

Dependencies

• Eigen3 - is typically bundled with ubuntu distros, or can be installed via package manager. Otherwise, use the -DEIGEN_DIR=<eigen_cmake_path> option when running cmake
• liburdfdom - can be installed via package manager, in recent ubuntu distros this does not require ROS
• VTK - this can also be installed via package manager, but you will need VTK>=8.2 in order for this code to work. I strongly suggest compiling VTK 8.2 from source and running cmake with the option -DVTK_DIR=<vtk_cmake_path>.

Note on compilers - This code uses the filesystem header, which is part of the standard c++ libraries since c++17. If you have an older compiler (e.g. gcc-7, as it is default on Ubuntu 18.04) you need to upgrade it. For instance, you can do it using

sudo apt install software-properties-common build-essentials
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-toolchain-r/test
sudo apt update
sudo apt install gcc-9 g++-9

and then use the additional -D CMAKE_C_COMPILER=gcc-9 -D CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=g++-9 cmake flags.

Usage

1. Build

   git clone https://github.com/fbottarel/manip-env-visu
   cd manip-env-visu
   mkdir build
   cd build
   cmake .. -DVTK_DIR=<vtk_cmake_path> -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<your_install_path>
   make install
   

   The make install is optional, you can just make.

2. Use

   In your CMakeLists.txt, make sure to find the library. In case of a custom installation path, specify the manip-env-visu_DIR explicitly (by default this is in <install_dir>/lib/cmake/manip-env-visu). Also, make sure to update your LD_LIBRARY_PATH accordingly, since this is a shared library. If you use the default install path, none of this is necessary since the library will be found automatically.

   A minimal example CMakeLists.txt for a test.cpp file looks something like this

   cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.5 FATAL_ERROR)
   project(example-cpp)
   set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 17)
   find_package(manip-env-visu REQUIRED)
   
   add_executable(example-cpp main.cpp)
   
   target_link_libraries(example-cpp
                         manip-env-visu::manip-env-visu)
   

3. Whine

   Let me know when something doesn't work. Open an issue and I'll try to help!

Docker

I added a Docker example in order to show how to install the essential dependencies from scratch. You can use it as a development environment, if you wish!

Assuming you have Docker installed, build the image with

 cd docker
 docker build -t fbottarel/manip-env-visu:latest .

and run the aptly named run.sh shell script.

Example

A simple visualization with a gripper, an object and world reference frame should look like this.