URDF and Paths to Collada
I am trying to write and URDF file that uses my mechanical CAD models. I have converted my mechanical model to a collada (.dae) file. My launch file parses the URDF to XML and publishes it to /robot_description. This is the subsection my URDF for the link I want to model with my mesh.
<link name="robot_body">
<visual>
<origin xyz="0 0 0" rpy="0 0 0" />
<geometry>
<mesh filename="./polou_4801_body.dae"/>
</geometry>
<material name="blue"/>
</visual>
<collision>
<geometry>
<mesh filename="./polou_4801_body.dae"/>
</geometry>
</collision>
</link>
From there I add a robot model to RVIZ and point it to the robot descriptions at which point it balks out and fails with
[ERROR] [1649121599.466978255] [rviz2]: Could not load resource [./polou_4801_body.dae]: Unable to open file "./polou_4801_body.dae".
This seems like a simple problem of misplaced paths. I am new to colcon and am not sure to tell it during build to publish files to a specific place and then how to reference them from the URDF.