I would like to use rviz as a viewer for an external path planning application. In the application, controlled by python, I have robots and obstacles. Robots are downloaded via urdf files by python commands. In my current understanding of rviz, to visualize a robot, I need to click on the "Add" button to add a robot. Is it possible to add a robot only by python commands via a ros service for instance ?

rosservice call rviz add_robot ${robot_name}_description

Same question for collada or vrml meshes.

Thank you for your answer. I tried to source /home/florent/devel/ros/install/setup.bash without modifying any ROS_ environment variable and I get the following environment:

student@student-virtualbox:~$ env | grep ROS
ROS_ROOT=/opt/ros/groovy/share/ros
ROS_PACKAGE_PATH=/home/student/devel/sot/install/share:/home/student/devel/sot/install/stacks:/opt/ros/groovy/share:/opt/ros/groovy/stacks
ROS_MASTER_URI=http://localhost:11311
ROSLISP_PACKAGE_DIRECTORIES=
ROS_DISTRO=groovy
ROS_ETC_DIR=/opt/ros/groovy/etc/ros

Unfortunately, /home/student/devel/sot/install/lib is not in ROS_PACKAGE_PATH and rosrun dynamic_graph_bridge run_command still fails.

To my understanding, catkin provides 2 different functionalities:

1. a way to handle dependencies between packages in the installation process and
2. a tool to create ROS services and messages.

As I am already using appropriate tools for 1, I wish to use catkin only for 2. In other words, I use catkin macros add_message_files, add_service_files to generate the source code relative to my services and topics, but I want to install my package in the standard way:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=myprefix -DCMAKE_INSTALL_LIBDIR=myprefix/lib..
make install

I use CATKIN_PACKAGE_BIN_DESTINATION cmake macro as defined by REP 122 to install package relative executable and scripts.

As expected, cmake installs my executables in myprefix/lib/pkg-name with execution rights for everyone.

However, when I type rosrun pkg-name executable, i.e. rosrun dynamic_graph_bridge run_command I get the following message:

[rosrun] Couldn't find executable named run_command below /home/florent/devel/ros/install/share/dynamic_graph_bridge

when as explained before run_command is in /home/florent/devel/ros/install/lib/dynamic_graph_bridge.

my ROS_PACKAGE_PATH contains /home/florent/devel/ros/install:/opt/ros/groovy/share:/opt/ros/groovy/stacks

What did I wrong? Why does the error message seem inconsistent with REP 122?

I run groovy on ubuntu-12.04 32bits. The package can be found at http://www.github.com/stack-of-tasks/dynamic_graph_bridge.

I tried to compile tutorial for resource_retriever.

I copy-pasted sample code 3.1 in test.cc and tried to compile as follows: g++ pkg-config --cflags resource_retriever pkg-config --libs resource_retriever -o test test.cc >& g++.output

Linking failed since resource_retriever.pc field "Requires" is empty while it should probably not be. Compilation output is copied below.

I am running ros/groovy installed by apt-get on ubuntu-12.04.

Florent Lamiraux

/tmp/cclSBJUI.o: In function main': test.cc:(.text+0x1a): undefined reference toresource_retriever::Retriever::Retriever()' test.cc:(.text+0x63): undefined reference to resource_retriever::Retriever::get(std::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> > const&)' test.cc:(.text+0xeb): undefined reference toros::console::g_initialized' test.cc:(.text+0xfa): undefined reference to ros::console::initialize()' test.cc:(.text+0x14b): undefined reference toros::console::initializeLogLocation(ros::console::LogLocation, std::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char="">, std::allocator<char> > const&, ros::console::levels ::Level)' test.cc:(.text+0x187): undefined reference to ros::console::setLogLocationLevel(ros::console::LogLocation*, ros::console::levels::Level)' test.cc:(.text+0x193): undefined reference toros::console::checkLogLocationEnabled(ros::console::LogLocation)' test.cc:(.text+0x1e4): undefined reference to ros::console::print(ros::console::FilterBase*, log4cxx::Logger*, ros::console::levels::Level, char const*, int, char const*, char const*, ...)' test.cc:(.text+0x210): undefined reference toresource_retriever::Retriever::~Retriever()' test.cc:(.text+0x2a6): undefined reference to ros::console::g_initialized' test.cc:(.text+0x2b5): undefined reference toros::console::initialize()' test.cc:(.text+0x306): undefined reference to ros::console::initializeLogLocation(ros::console::LogLocation*, std::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, std::allocator<char> > const&, ros::console::levels ::Level)' test.cc:(.text+0x342): undefined reference toros::console::setLogLocationLevel(ros::console::LogLocation, ros::console::levels::Level)' test.cc:(.text+0x34e): undefined reference to ros::console::checkLogLocationEnabled(ros::console::LogLocation*)' test.cc:(.text+0x3b6): undefined reference toros::console::print(ros::console::FilterBase, log4cxx::Logger, ros::console::levels::Level, char const, int, char const, char const, ...)' test.cc:(.text+0x404): undefined reference to `resource_retriever::Retriever::~Retriever()' collect2: ld returned 1 exit status