[Robotics] OpenGRASP, COLLADA and Blender

[Stefan Ulbrich]

Hello List,

On behalf of the OpenGRASP team, I'd like to thank you for your answers on the OpenGRASP topic. 

> I slightly differ with Herman here: I think it's a good idea
> 1/ to rely on Collada 1.5
> 2/ To use the built-in extension mechanisms (especially since the 
> 'technique' keyword allows several profiles to co-exist)
> 
> The proposal on the OpenRave website 
> (http://openrave.programmingvision.com/wiki/index.php/Format:COLLADA) 
> looks interesting. We need to look at it in details to see how it could 
> match the MORSE abstractions.
> 
> We plan anyhow to use a standard, ASCII based file format for MORSE 
> simulation assets, and Collada is today the best option.

Collada is very mature (and accepted) and supports already many of the things required for robotics. 
Once definitions have been found and approved, we could aim for inclusion in a newer revision of the standard. 
Until then the 'technique' keyword is a good mechanism that preserves compatibility with the standard. 

> Very good. Do you plan to port it to Blender 2.5? API have changed a lot 
> and Blender 2.4x isn't supported anymore: it would be a pity to loose 
> all the good work you did!

Currently, I still cannot estimate how much work it is to port the scripts to Blender 2.5 as it has 
been released very recently and I haven't found the time to look into it deeply. 
I hope that it will be possible, and that it can become an independent component that 
can be integrated into OpenCollada or Blender itself eventually. 
The biggest problem to expect probably is geometry and material data  - that part uses still large parts of the 
original import export scripts. The kinematics/armatures part has been completely rewritten. 

> Where can we get the source code? do you use VCS that allow easy 
> contribution like git or mercurial? (via Github or Bitbucket?)

Being hosted on Sourceforge, you should use SVN to get the latest version 

svn co https://opengrasp.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/opengrasp/trunk opengrasp

and there is also a mailing-list available at:

https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/opengrasp-users

>> * Blender Robot Editor plug-in
>> 
>> This feature aims to facilitate the creation of robot models for scientific applications. Blender is difficult to master, and the available mechanisms for the definition of kinematics lack a robotics focus. This plug-in lets one build up a kinematic tree and connect it to the geometries in a way that is more familiar to robotic scientists. Together with the powerful modeling capabilities and the various option for importing geometries that blender offers, this plug-in helps to easily create robot models usable in Simulation.
>> the import and export of COLLADA v1.5 is currently tightly coupled with this plug-in. Currently, it runs only on blender 2.48/2.49.
> 
> This sounds very interesting as well. On the website, it's a bit 
> difficult to understand how it work. Cold you put some videos to better 
> understand?

There is a (little outdated) tutorial in the wiki (http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/opengrasp/index.php?title=Create_a_Collada_1.5_model)
But I do have a video tutorial from a presentation that I can upload soon (after having added some voice).

> And same question: do you plan to port it to Blender 2.5 ?

Yes, this would be very helpful indeed. But I fear that this could turn out much more complicated. I have heard that designing plugin guis changed a lot. 

>> It's important that you are aware that this a work still on development and in a beta state. You are more than welcome to download, test , use it, and contribute to its development. We will still be pushing on its development and the feedback from users and collaborators can be of interest for all of us.
>> 
>> Of course, we are open to establish future collaborations.
> 
> It's definitely something we would support!
> Maybe we should organize an "OpenGrasp/OpenRave - MORSE" event to 
> present the work we did on both side, and see where we can cooperate 
> (definition of standards, libraries of assets, ...)

Sounds great! This definitively would be very interesting and helpful.

Best regards and happy Easter!

Stefan


--

Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT)
Institute for Anthropomatics - IAIM
Humanoids and Intelligence Systems Lab

Stefan Ulbrich
Research Scientist

Adenauerring 2  (Building 50.20, R323)
76131 Karlsruhe, Germany

Phone: +49 721 608-45336
Fax:     +49 721 608-44077
EMail:  stefan.ulbrich at kit.edu
http://his.anthropomatik.kit.edu/

KIT – University of the State of Baden-Wuerttemberg and
National Research Center of the Helmholtz Association

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