@ranchhandrobotics/babylon_ros

v0.4.0

Published

7 days ago

Babylon.JS abstractions for ROS 2

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ranchhandrobotics

babylonjs ros ros2

babylon_ros

Overview

Babylon_ros is a Node.JS API for rendering ROS 2 based URDFs and Xacro in a web browser or Visual Studio Code compatible extension using the Babylon.js graphics engine.

Universal URDF Viewer

The generic URDF viewer accepts any URDF or Xacro file via URL parameters:

https://ranch-hand-robotics.github.io/babylon_ros/docs/urdf-viewer.html?urdf=YOUR_URDF_URL

Example URLs:

Mule Robot: https://ranch-hand-robotics.github.io/babylon_ros/urdf-viewer.html?urdf=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Ranch-Hand-Robotics/babylon_ros/main/test/testdata/mule.urdf
R2 Robot: https://ranch-hand-robotics.github.io/babylon_ros/urdf-viewer.html?urdf=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Ranch-Hand-Robotics/babylon_ros/main/test/testdata/r2.urdf

This makes it easy to embed live robot visualizations in any README by simply linking to the viewer with your URDF file URL.

Features

🤖 URDF and Xacro Object Model: Loads and validates URDF and Xacro files into an object model you can access
🌐 Web Rendering Interface: Access your robot's visualization from any device with a web browser
📸 Screenshot API: Capture clean screenshots of your robot scenes without UI elements as base64 PNG images
📊 Progress Tracking: Monitor mesh/asset loading progress with callback API for custom progress bars

Non-Features

No Real-time Visualization: This package does not provide real-time visualization capabilities. It is focused on static visualization and interaction.
No Simulation: Babylon ROS does not include a physics engine for simulating dynamics or collisions.
No Sensor visualization: The package does not simulate or visualize sensors.

Installation

Babylon_ros is available via the Node Package Manager package that can be installed in your web application. To install, run:

npm install --save @ranchhandrobotics/babylon_ros

Usage

To use Babylon ROS in your web application, you need to set up a basic HTML page and include the Babylon.js library along with the Babylon ROS package.

Here’s a simple example which renders a the Test Page included in this package:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <style nonce="${nonce}">
        html,
        body {
            overflow: hidden;
            width: 100%;
            height: 100%;
            margin: 0;
            padding: 0;
        }

        #renderCanvas {
            width: 100%;
            height: 100%;
            touch-action: none;
        }
    </style>
    <title>URDF Preview</title>
</head>
<body>
    <canvas id="renderCanvas" touch-action="none"></canvas>    
    <script src="./ros.js"></script>
    <script>
        
        window.addEventListener("load", babylon_ros.RenderTestMain);

    </script>

</body>
</html>

Support

If you encounter any issues with this package, the following resources are provided:

Github Issues

Bugs and feature requests are handled through Github Issues in the Repository.

If you find that you are hitting the same issue as someone else, please give a :+1: or comment on an existing issue.

Please provide as much details as possible, including an isolated reproduction of the issue or a pointer to an online repository.

Discussions

Github Discussions are provided for community driven general guidance, walkthroughs, or support.

Sponsor

If you find this package useful, please consider sponsoring Ranch Hand Robotics to help support the development of this package and other open source projects.