ROSnewbie11's profile - activity

The question is: In which directory am I supposed to be during the various steps ?

This question has confused me again and probably made me do some mistakes along the way.

I'm trying to follow the tutorial Parse a urdf file.

Below is a desription on how i guess where to be in the steps of the tutorial.

From the beginning of the tutorial:

$ cd ~/catkin_ws/src
$ catkin_create_pkg testbot_description urdf
$ cd testbot_description
$ mkdir urdf

(well, this is straight forward. Here we are placed in

~/catkin_ws/src/testbot_description        creating the subdirectory
~/catkin_ws/src/testbot_description/urdf  )

Next step:

cp /path/to/.../testbot_description/urdf/my_robot.urdf .

is a bit confusing since the file "my_robot.urdf" created in the previous tutorial Create your own urdf file was createde in a entirly different directory than indicated in the suggested command since the directory:

 ~/catkin_ws/src/testbot_description/urdf

did not exist at all at the time.

Next step:

In the next step you are in directory

 ~/catkin_ws/src/testbot_description/urdf

Now you create a subdirectory "src"

> ~/catkin_ws/src/testbot_description/urdf/src
                                           ^^^
                                           ^^^

but you create parser.cpp when still being in:

> ~/catkin_ws/src/testbot_description/urdf
                                      ^^^^
                                      ^^^^
                                      ^^^^

but saving parser.cpp into directory

~/catkin_ws/src/testbot_description/urdf/src

(here I think i made a mistake by saving parser.cpp into:

~/catkin_ws/src/testbot_description/urdf       I.E.   not into:
~/catkin_ws/src/testbot_description/urdf/src )

Next step

I'm quoting:

...First add the following lines to your CMakeList.txt file: ...

This leads to the question: which "CMakeList.txt" ?

Just by following the general tutorial (and rosserial) I have:

~/ros/src/agitr/CMakeLists.txt
~/ros/src/CMakeLists.txt
~/catkin_ws/build/catkin_generated/metapackages/rosserial/CMakeLists.txt
~/catkin_ws/src/beginner_tutorials/CMakeLists.txt
~/catkin_ws/src/CMakeLists.txt
~/catkin_ws/src/rosserial/rosserial/CMakeLists.txt
~/catkin_ws/src/rosserial/rosserial_embeddedlinux/CMakeLists.txt
~/catkin_ws/src/rosserial/rosserial_client/CMakeLists.txt
~/catkin_ws/src/rosserial/rosserial_msgs/CMakeLists.txt
~/catkin_ws/src/rosserial/rosserial_arduino/CMakeLists.txt
~/catkin_ws/src/rosserial/rosserial_xbee/CMakeLists.txt
~/catkin_ws/src/rosserial/rosserial_python/CMakeLists.txt
~/catkin_ws/src/rosserial/rosserial_server/CMakeLists.txt
~/catkin_ws/src/testbot_description/urdf/src/CMakeLists.txt
~/catkin_ws/src/testbot_description/CMakeLists.txt
~/ROStest/build/catkin_generated/metapackages/rosserial/CMakeLists.txt
~/ROStest/src/CMakeLists.txt
~/ROStest/src/rosserial/rosserial/CMakeLists.txt
~/ROStest/src/rosserial/rosserial_embeddedlinux/CMakeLists.txt
~/ROStest/src/rosserial/rosserial_client/CMakeLists.txt
~/ROStest/src/rosserial/rosserial_msgs/CMakeLists.txt
~/ROStest/src/rosserial/rosserial_arduino/CMakeLists.txt
~/ROStest/src/rosserial/rosserial_xbee/CMakeLists.txt
~/ROStest/src/rosserial/rosserial_python/CMakeLists.txt
~/ROStest/src/rosserial/rosserial_server/CMakeLists.txt

I guess it's either of these two:

~/catkin_ws/src/testbot_description/urdf/src/CMakeLists.txt
~/catkin_ws/src/testbot_description/CMakeLists.txt

Most probably

~/catkin_ws/src/testbot_description/CMakeLists.txt

since the other CMakeLists.txt has the following text at the top:

   "#toplevel CMakeLists.txt for a catkin workspace"

Next step

I asume where still in directory:

~/catkin_ws/src/testbot_description/urdf

so running catkin_make yields as follows:

~/catkin_ws/src/testbot_description/urdf$ 
~/catkin_ws/src/testbot_description/urdf$ 
~/catkin_ws/src/testbot_description/urdf$ catkin_make

Base path:     ~/catkin_ws/src/testbot_description/urdf
Source space:  ~/catkin_ws/src/testbot_description/urdf/src
Build space:   ~/catkin_ws/src/testbot_description/urdf/build
Devel ...

The question is asked since the tutorial is a bit unclear to the newcomer who don't have a clear view of the current ROS/Turtlebot idiomatic lingo. After some investigation I found out that a Turtlebot (now also called Turtlebot 1 since there is a new version of Turtlebot, the Turtlebot 2) is composed of a "base" from the company "iRobot" named "Create". There aparently are number of versions of Turtlebot 1 and Turtlebot 2 depending on the "base". Another common base for the Turtlebot 1/2 is from the Korean company "Yujin Robot" named "Kobuki". Since "base", "Create" (also a noun), "Kobuki" are used as concepts without much explanation. Since I have derailed a number of times by now I dare suggest some thought is put into this when overseing the tutorials. Most of the time the tutorials this far has been excellent and I guess I would ... (more)