Incomplete turtlebot model on fuerte gazebo

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Besides launching Gazebo and robot.launch at the same time I've found two (very hacky) solutions to the problem of an incomplete Turtlebot model in Fuerte.

Solution 1

After launching turtlebot_world.launch and adding the turtlebot, close the GUI. This should not close the Gazebo server, just the GUI component.

Now you can re-open the GUI from another terminal window by typing rosrun gazebo gui. This will not work every time, but I find that after relaunching the GUI window a few times the entire turtlebot appears.

Solution 2

Find the Turtlebot URDF file

roscd turtlebot_description/urdf

Now modify the turtlebot urdf to remove the "hardware" (supports and such).

vim turtlebot.urdf.xarcro

Comment out the line that includes the hardware urdf file - the result should look something like this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<robot name="turtlebot"
       xmlns:sensor="http://playerstage.sourceforge.net/gazebo/xmlschema/#sensor"
       xmlns:controller="http://playerstage.sourceforge.net/gazebo/xmlschema/#controller"
       xmlns:interface="http://playerstage.sourceforge.net/gazebo/xmlschema/#interface"
       xmlns:xacro="http://ros.org/wiki/xacro">
    <!--
    <include filename="$(find turtlebot_description)/urdf/turtlebot_hardware.urdf.xacro" />
    -->
    <include filename="$(find turtlebot_description)/urdf/turtlebot_body.urdf.xacro" />
    <include filename="$(find turtlebot_description)/urdf/turtlebot_calibration.xacro" />
    <include filename="$(find turtlebot_description)/urdf/turtlebot_kinect.urdf.xacro" />

    <property name="M_PI" value="3.14159"/>  <property name="SCALE" value="0.0254"/>

    <!-- Body of TurtleBot, with plates, standoffs and Create (including sim sensors) -->
    <turtlebot_body/>

    <!-- Kinect frames and mounting (includes simulation) -->
    <turtlebot_kinect/>
</robot>

Note that this will result in the turtlebot being rendered without standoffs between the plates, however the simulation seems to work just fine without these.