URDF Workbench, robotics

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Kunda1
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Re: URDF Workbench, robotics

Post by Kunda1 »

There is interest but not sure if it's active. What are you interested in specifically? (sometimes discussion generates 'movement' ;) )
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sliptonic
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Re: URDF Workbench, robotics

Post by sliptonic »

karnot wrote: Thu Jul 22, 2021 6:55 am Hi, Is anyone still working on the robotics package for freecad? Please connect with me if yes. I am very interested in this and I want to know if anyone would be interested as well or are already working on it. Thank you!.
I would like to see new life breathed into the Robot wb. I always thought it would be interesting if Robot could function as a general simulation of the tool paths generated by the Path workbench.

Alas, nobody has really worked on Robot in a long time.
galou_breizh
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Re: URDF Workbench, robotics

Post by galou_breizh »

karnot wrote: Thu Jul 22, 2021 6:55 am Hi, Is anyone still working on the robotics package for freecad? Please connect with me if yes. I am very interested in this and I want to know if anyone would be interested as well or are already working on it. Thank you!.
I'm intersted in a ROS workbench for FreeCAD and even started studying how this could be done and tried to get a student working on it. The student didn't react and my study didn't bring to any usable code so far.
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Kunda1
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Re: URDF Workbench, robotics

Post by Kunda1 »

The challenging aspect for developing the Robot workbench is that it's coded in cplusplus and that makes it a PITA to compile each time.
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Masao Tsurui
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Re: URDF Workbench, robotics

Post by Masao Tsurui »

Hi folks,

I'm also interested in robotics related workbench working on FreeCAD. Now I'm trying to use [pytorch_kinematics][https://github.com/UM-ARM-Lab/pytorch_kinematics] and https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-toolkit in FreeCAD. I need urdf or sdf export functionality because pytorch_kinematics can treat both of them. Anyway do you have better idea to realize to integrate FreeCAD + Inverse Kinematics built on Python?
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fosselius
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Re: URDF Workbench, robotics

Post by fosselius »

I am back, I am going to bring this project back to life in the near future. First off i will handle the pull requests and make sure what little functionality that are in place still works with newer versions of FreeCAD and ROS.
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Re: URDF Workbench, robotics

Post by menrise »

Hi, fosselius, nice to hear what you continue develop this workbranch. I am currently using Blender with Phobos plugin for models gotten from FreeCAD. Phobos plugin are nice and very functional (many joint types, constraints, etc) but i want to have 1 program for export URDF, SDF and DAE. You can check Blender Phobos plugin functionality as reference for your work. I will wait you finish your workbench.

https://github.com/dfki-ric/phobos
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fosselius
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Re: URDF Workbench, robotics

Post by fosselius »

@menrise Thank you for the link to Phobos, I have not seen the project before, will see if i can find some inspiration from it.

It will probably take months if not years for me to build something usable for URDF/SDF import/export. I have a full time job, a bunch of kids, a well paying part time job and house renovation that competes for my time.

This workbench is mostly to enable me to quickly iterate and play around with different mechanical linkages.
Before this fall i hope to get support for some basic joints and to simulate and visualize directly in FreeCAD with pybullet.

I would also like to add Ignition/Gazeboo + ROS support in the future.
Jsevenh
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Re: URDF Workbench, robotics

Post by Jsevenh »

kaalatrie wrote: Thu Jul 22, 2021 6:55 am Hi, Is anyone still working on the robotics package for freecad? Please connect with me if yes. I am very interested in this and I want to know if anyone would be interested as well or are already working on it. Thank you!.
I've started working on @fosselius's robotCreator workbench , thought It would be better to use an xml parser to edit and write xml files I'm using python's ElementTree , so my idea is to have a root Element (root.sdf) in and add subElements(children) to it and extract link and joint properties from an assembly made using a2plus or the upcoming itegrated assembly strore those in an element tree then write it to a file while giving the user more flexiblity to adjust sdf parameters like gravity,solver type,enable or disable some properties ,add sensors,edit joint and link properties ... too far?? :D . the repo https://github.com/Jsevenh/RobotDescriptor its still not fully fuctional just started working on it,
Last edited by Jsevenh on Sat Dec 02, 2023 3:36 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Jsevenh
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Re: URDF Workbench, robotics

Post by Jsevenh »

so I thought it world be nice If I could store the elementtree in an "Future Python object" to allow global access and for recovery,persistence ..., so that every module that deals with a specific elment would just add a child object as long as it knows its parent ,however I'm getting an "ElementTree" not json serializable error"
I've tried converting it to a string using the ET.tostring which returns a byte-string which again is not json serializable, I would like to ask for suggestions on any way I can handle this , perhaps a better way to solve this problem , Thanks
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