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Is URDF depricated? Are there replacement SDF tools?

asked 2014-04-02 12:03:01 -0600

updated 2016-10-24 09:03:32 -0600

ngrennan gravatar image

Since Gazebo is deprecating URDF and moving to SDF, it seems like ROS might follow suit.

Is URDF depricated, or about to be?

If so are there tools which work with SDF? For instance will robot_state_publisher be able to handle SDF defined robots?

If not, should we be sticking to using URDF for defining our robot models?

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demmeln gravatar image demmeln  ( 2014-04-03 04:59:37 -0600 )edit
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I recently found that in trying to learn Gazebo, they tend to focus on SDF and not give me any examples of URDF usage in Gazebo. But in the Gazebo tutorial section about ROS integration all the examples use URDF and I get stuck because all the other tutorials teach only SDF. Very frustrating.

Kurt Leucht gravatar image Kurt Leucht  ( 2014-04-03 10:56:20 -0600 )edit

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answered 2014-04-03 14:24:58 -0600

hsu gravatar image
Since Gazebo is deprecating URDF and moving to SDF, it seems like ROS might follow suit.

hm, I am not aware of such deprecation. Can you point me to the originating source of that news? Thanks.

Is URDF depricated, or about to be?

No. The reason being URDF is still useful for things outside of simulation. SDF tools / Gazebo will continue to parse URDF formats.

If so are there tools which work with SDF?

If so, I am not aware of them yet.

For instance will robot_state_publisher be able to handle SDF defined robots?

Not that I am aware of. Though a good starting point is a feature request on an issue tracker :)

If not, should we be sticking to using URDF for defining our robot models?

Yes. You can always use gzsdf print or gz sdf -p (gazebo 3.x) to convert URDF to SDF.

But there may be reasons to use SDF if the project is simulation specific or will not rely on existing ROS tools?

Kurt,

If you want to see more examples / tutorials in URDF, please comment/up-vote this issue: https://bitbucket.org/osrf/gazebo_mod...

Thanks.

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I may have jumped to conclusions, but I got that impression from the idea that SDF supersedes functionality of URDF, and posts like this: http://answers.gazebosim.org/question/62/sdf-vs-urdf-what-should-one-use/ I'm curious to know why URDF isn't being deprecated, but I'll ask in a different forum.

Asomerville gravatar image Asomerville  ( 2014-04-08 05:48:12 -0600 )edit

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Asked: 2014-04-02 12:03:01 -0600

Seen: 2,055 times

Last updated: Apr 03 '14