install urdfdom from source

edit

I've installed ROS from source for Hydro as the documentation states. I source that ROS workspace and then create a new workspace for MoveIt development that I overlay on top. The issue is that it cannot find urdfdom:

CMake Error at /home/dave/ros/ws_ros_catkin/install_isolated/share/catkin/cmake/catkinConfig.cmake:72 (find_package):
  Could not find a configuration file for package urdfdom.

  Set urdfdom_DIR to the directory containing a CMake configuration file for
  urdfdom.  The file will have one of the following names:

    urdfdomConfig.cmake
    urdfdom-config.cmake

Call Stack (most recent call first):
  moveit_core/CMakeLists.txt:10 (find_package)


CMake Error at /home/dave/ros/ws_ros_catkin/install_isolated/share/catkin/cmake/catkin_package.cmake:156 (message):
  catkin_package() DEPENDS on 'urdfdom' which must be find_package()-ed
  before.  If it is a catkin package it can be declared as CATKIN_DEPENDS
  instead without find_package()-ing it.
Call Stack (most recent call first):
  /home/dave/ros/ws_ros_catkin/install_isolated/share/catkin/cmake/catkin_package.cmake:98 (_catkin_package)
  moveit_core/CMakeLists.txt:63 (catkin_package)


-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
Invoking "cmake" failed

Digging around, I found that in my ROS source installation workspace it was missing a .cmake file and this entire folder:

/home/dave/ros/ws_ros_catkin/install_isolated/share/urdfdom

I don't know how it was able to build the rest of the packages without this. My solution was to manually build urdfdom:

cd /home/dave/ros/ws_ros_catkin/src/urdfdom
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ../
make
sudo make install

Then I symlinked the following folder:

ln -s /usr/local/share/urdfdom /home/dave/ros/ws_ros_catkin/src/urdfdom

I'm shocked that it worked, but I feel like this is a bad solution. What did I do wrong and how do I fix it in the future?

Thanks!

Edit

Here's the output of a catkin_make_isolated --install build: https://gist.github.com/davetcoleman/...

My ROS_PACKAGE_PATH is the following:

ws_jsk2/src
ws_moveit/src
ws_ros_catkin/install_isolated/share
ws_ros_catkin/install_isolated/stacks

Did you install your hydro workspace before overlaying moveit? Yes, I ran setup.bash of my ros source install before starting to build moveit.

Edit 2

In /home/dave/ros/ws_ros_catkin/src/urdfdom, tree output:

https://gist.github.com/davetcoleman/...

Note that I made the build folder myself, as described above, after being unable to fix the issue myself

Edit 3

My checkout of urdfdom is directly from the Github repo:

git clone https://github.com/ros/urdfdom

It appears there is no package.xml in that repo, I guess it is added as some patch? This is undocumented and seems like a messy way of doing things. What is the recommended way of making changes to urdfdom with ROS and committing it to Github? I now see where the package.xml comes from:

https://github.com/ros-gbp/urdfdom-re...