Error displaying URDF in webpage

I am following this tutorial on visualizing a URDF in a webpage. All of the commands are running fine in terminal however, when opening the webpage I am seeing this : image description

I am able to rotate and move the camera around like it is supposed to. However, the URDF model is just not loading properly. I receive this warning when running rosrun robot_state_republisher robot_state_republisher : The root link base_footprint has an inertia specified in the URDF, but KDL does not support a root link with an inertia. As a workaround, you can add an extra dummy link to your URDF but I am unsure if this has anything to do with the error. [Running ROS Melodic on Ubuntu 18.04]

Asked by saintdere on 2020-06-16 04:29:44 UTC

Comments

but I am unsure if this has anything to do with the error

Have you tried or is it just an assumption ?

Asked by Delb on 2020-06-16 04:32:37 UTC

Sorry, tried what exactly?

Asked by saintdere on 2020-06-16 04:34:49 UTC

The error tells you that the root link has an inertia but it's not supported. The workaround is to add a link with nothing and connecting it to base_footprint (i.e. a dummy link) :

<link name="dummy_link" />    
<joint name="dummy_link_to_footprint" type="fixed">
    <parent link="dummy_link"/>
    <child link="base_footprint"/>
</joint>

<link name="base_footprint">
......

Asked by Delb on 2020-06-16 04:40:34 UTC

I haven't tried it yet because I'm not using a model / I don't know where to find the model that the tutorial is using

Asked by saintdere on 2020-06-16 05:01:20 UTC

If you have propperly followed your tutorial then it should be in tha package pr2_description. To change the model you should clone this repo to your workspace.

Asked by Delb on 2020-06-16 07:07:11 UTC

I have cloned the package pr2_description, but I do not know which file specifically to add the dummy link into - there are many xacro files inside the package.

Asked by saintdere on 2020-06-17 03:42:41 UTC

To the best of my knowledge, the warning should have nothing to do with the visualization. It is meant for those who need to use KDL libraries, especially dynamics solvers. I am pretty confident that you can safely ignore it in this application!

Asked by ffusco on 2020-06-17 04:50:48 UTC

Thank you.. but the problem in my original question is still the same. The URDF model is not loading where it is supposed to

Asked by saintdere on 2020-06-17 05:06:26 UTC

Yeah, it was just to help ruling out possible sources of issues. Since you were unsure about the warning, I just wanted to confirm you that the message should not be related to your problem. Unfortunately, I do not have any experience with the package you are testing and thus I cannot help you further... Good luck!

Asked by ffusco on 2020-06-17 05:15:07 UTC