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I don't really have an idea for a simple application right now, but here is how you can set up a simulation environment that is "almost" like a real robot.

Instead of stage, you should also have a look at Gazebo (especially if you want to experiment with camera images). If you want to keep it simple, I would recommend looking at the Turtlebot; it is very well-supported in Gazebo, so it's almost like working with a real robot, and less daunting than the PR2.

You can use the turtlebot_empty_world.launch launch file from the turtlebot_gazebo package, or use the following modified launch file to give you a more interesting world:

<launch>
  <param name="/use_sim_time" value="true" />

  <node name="gazebo" pkg="gazebo" type="gazebo" args="-u $(find gazebo_worlds)/worlds/wg_collada.world" respawn="false" output="screen"/>

  <include file="$(find turtlebot_gazebo)/launch/robot.launch"/>
</launch>

This gives you a fake laser scan on the /scan topic ("fake" because it's computed from the Kinect data), camera data on the subtopics of /camera/, and position information via the /odom topic and via the tf transform from odom_combined to base_link.

I don't really have an idea for a simple application right now, but here is how you can set up a simulation environment that is "almost" like a real robot.

Instead of stage, you should also have a look at Gazebo (especially if you want to experiment with camera images). If you want to keep it simple, I would recommend looking at the Turtlebot; it is very well-supported in Gazebo, so it's almost like working with a real robot, and less daunting than the PR2.

You can use the turtlebot_empty_world.launch launch file from the turtlebot_gazebo package, or use the following modified launch file to give you a more interesting world:

<launch>
  <param name="/use_sim_time" value="true" />

  <node name="gazebo" pkg="gazebo" type="gazebo" args="-u $(find gazebo_worlds)/worlds/wg_collada.world" respawn="false" output="screen"/>

  <include file="$(find turtlebot_gazebo)/launch/robot.launch"/>
</launch>

This gives you a fake laser scan scan(*) on the /scan topic ("fake" because it's computed from the Kinect data), camera data on the subtopics of /camera/, and position information via the /odom topic and via the tf transform from odom_combined to base_link.

I don't really have an idea for a simple application right now, but here is how you can set up a simulation environment that is "almost" like a real robot.

Instead of stage, you should also have a look at Gazebo (especially if you want to experiment with camera images). If you want to keep it simple, I would recommend looking at the Turtlebot; it is very well-supported in Gazebo, so it's almost like working with a real robot, and less daunting than the PR2.

You can use the turtlebot_empty_world.launch launch file from the turtlebot_gazebo package, or use the following modified launch file to give you a more interesting world:

<launch>
  <param name="/use_sim_time" value="true" />

  <node name="gazebo" pkg="gazebo" type="gazebo" args="-u $(find gazebo_worlds)/worlds/wg_collada.world" respawn="false" output="screen"/>

  <include file="$(find turtlebot_gazebo)/launch/robot.launch"/>
</launch>

This gives you a fake laser scan(*) on the /scan topic ("fake" because it's computed from the Kinect data), camera data on the subtopics of /camera/, and position information via the /odom topic and via the tf transform from odom_combined to base_link.

(*) be aware of this bug, though.