I'm running ROS Fuerte on Ubuntu 12.04 and I'm trying to create a stack. I have already created a stack.xml file. I am now trying to make it possible to build the stack using rosbuild. I found http://ros.org/wiki/StackBuildFiles (this page) on the ROS wiki.

I created the CMakeLists.txt and the Makefile by copying the files on that page. However, when I run make package_source I get an error because the package_source.py file cannot be found.

Here is the full output of my error

cd build && cmake -Wdev -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=`rospack find rosbuild`/rostoolchain.cmake  ..
-- The C compiler identification is GNU
-- The CXX compiler identification is GNU
-- Check for working C compiler: /usr/bin/gcc
-- Check for working C compiler: /usr/bin/gcc -- works
-- Detecting C compiler ABI info
-- Detecting C compiler ABI info - done
-- Check for working CXX compiler: /usr/bin/c++
-- Check for working CXX compiler: /usr/bin/c++ -- works
-- Detecting CXX compiler ABI info
-- Detecting CXX compiler ABI info - done
-- Found PythonInterp: /usr/bin/python (found version "2.7.3")
-- Configuring done
-- Generating done
-- Build files have been written to: /home/user/ros_workspace/my_package/examples/build
#cd build && make 
/opt/ros/fuerte/share/ros/core/rosbuild/bin/package_source.py /home/user/ros_workspace/my_package/examples
make: /opt/ros/fuerte/share/ros/core/rosbuild/bin/package_source.py: Command not found
make: *** [package_source] Error 127

I also looked at some of the stacks listed on the ros website and they seemed to have the same CMakelist and Makefile as my package.

Any ideas why this was not installed when I installed ROS? Am I using out of date instructions or am I doing something wrong? All I want to be able to do is automatically build all of the packages in a stack.

Is there a way to check if the connection has been set up?

The system I'm developing on is erased each reboot. Unfortunately I rebooted before I could test this solution, but because rebooting (which would reset all file permissions to when they were working) fixed the problem I'm accepting this answer as correct.

I've been looking through the URDF specifications of the Atlas robot from DRC Sim. I noticed that there are two mu values and that they are quite large for what I would expect for a coefficient of friction. I've done some Googling but haven't found a definitive answer on what exactly the coefficient's mean and why the coefficients are larger than 1 in the models.

I found on ODE's wiki some information about the friction coefficients. http:// ode-wiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Manual:_Concepts#Friction_Approximation However, it mentions that there are two approximation methods. So my first question is, which one does Gazebo use by default and which one does the DRC Sim use?

I found a few more references to the coefficients in the ODE manual here http:// ode-wiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Manual:_All&printable=yes#Contact

I think that this section in the manual explains the difference between mu1 and mu2 and what the fdir1 and fdir2 parameters in the URDF means, but if it doesn't please let me know.

However, what I'm still not understanding is why there are mu values in the URDF that are above 1. Especially because in the newer SDF format specification it explicitly says that mu should be a value between 0 and 1. http:// gazebosim.org/sdf/1.3.html#mu

So my second question is why are the mu values so high in the URDF specification of the Atlas robot?

Also I have posted this question on the gazebo answers site. I wasn't sure which site was more appropriate. Here is a link to that question http:// answers.gazebosim.org/question/1512/what-do-the-friction-coefficients-mean-and-why-are/

Also sorry about not making the links clickable. I don't have enough karma to publish links.

Answered on Gazebosim website

The question has been answered on the Gazebo Answers site linked above. I'm leaving it up so others can follow the link to the answered question.

I'm trying to use the openni_launch and openni_tracker packages. I made a package called kinect_hmi and a launch file which launches both the openni_launch file and openni_track. When I tested this previously I could view he PointCloud2 data and the tf data in RVIZ. However, today when I started up the code I get the following error.

Error opening database/parameters file.

The point cloud data still shows up in RVIZ, but the skeleton tracking does not seem to be working. I tried starting roscore, openni_launch, and openni_tracker separately to see if my launch file was the problem but it didn't help. I have no idea why it isn't working all of the sudden.

Just in case here is my launch file

<launch>
  <include file="$(find kinect_hmi)/launch/camera_topics.launch" />
  <node pkg="tf" type="static_transform_publisher" name="depth_to_camera_broadcaster" args="0 0 0 0 0 0 camera_link openni_depth_frame 100" />
  <node name="openni_tracker" pkg="openni_tracker" type="openni_tracker" respawn="true"/>
</launch>

The camera topics launch file is the following

<launch>
  <include file="$(find openni_launch)/launch/openni.launch" />
</launch>

I thought maybe that the parameter server wasn't running so I tried the rosparam list command. However, the command returns a long list of things so I'm assuming that the parameter server is running.

My question is: Why is this happening and how do I fix it?

Thanks in advance