Looking for Blender robot model example to use with ROS

edit

Hello ROS Fans,

Until now I have been using a "box and cylinder" hand edited URDF/Xacro file for my robot (Pi Robot). I would now like to make a mesh-based model that I can then use with Gazebo, RViz and OpenRAVE but I have not used a CAD program before. This earlier question led me to Blender as a possible tool for creating the model and the online tutorials make it look very easy. In particular, the Armature feature looks perfect for creating all the joints.

If anyone has used Blender to create a robot model that you use with ROS, I'd love to be able to see your Blender file so that I can use it as a learning template. Otherwise, any other tips would be appreciated.

Thanks!
patrick

UPDATE: After playing around with Blender 2.58, I realize I should have specified the following: I ultimately want to use the Collada model of my robot directly with ROS (via the collada_urdf package) and OpenRAVE. I think the two answers below refer to using Blender as the simulation/display environment instead of RViz or Gazebo. Instead, I just want to build my robot in Blender, export it to Collada, then carry on in ROS without having to connect back to Blender.

In the meantime, I have discovered the following issues that have prevented my success:

• (From Rosen Diankov at OpenRAVE) The Collada file exported by Blender 2.58 defines a single mesh even if you have designed a multi-jointed robot. To also get the kinematic chain into the Collada file, you have to use something like the OpenGrasp Robot Editor. However, OpenGrasp requires Blender 2.49 and Python2.5 and so far I have been unable to get it to work without various Python import errors.

• Even if I could get it to work, it seems that the collada_urdf package in Diamondback may have a bug that prevents using Collada files directly with RViz. See my other question here.