VLP-16 Simulator doesn't appear to be working in complex sceneries ( e.g. VRC terrain)

[Bart Gallet]

Greetings

First of, I am relatively new to Gazebo - I am just starting to get into it, so the issue I am experiencing could be self-inflicting.

I have attached some files to reproduce the issue.

I am using ROS Kinetic and Gazebo 7 on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

When I place the VLP-16 model in the vrc_driving_terrain model, suddenly Gazebo is no longer publishing anything anymore (state publisher, point cloud, clock, etc.).

Thanks

Bart

[Kevin Hallenbeck]

It is possible that Gazebo can't handle that much data. Try reducing the number of samples in the urdf. See issue #2.

I should probably make a parameter for the number of samples.

[Kevin Hallenbeck]

The number of samples parameter is now changeable, and the default is smaller for real-time simulations. See commit b43afb5

[Bart Gallet]

Thanks Kevin,

I'll check it out tonight or tomorrow.

Cheers

Bart

[Kevin Hallenbeck]

I was able to reproduce your problem with the provided world file.

Gazebo appears to hang, but really it is taking a very long time to compute the ray sensor data. When I set the VLP-16 samples="20" in example.urdf, gazebo published data once every 2 seconds.

It must take significantly longer to compute ray sensor collisions on the vrc_driving_terrain heightmap. I don't think there is anything that this repository can do to speed that up.

[Bart Gallet]

Understood.

Thanks for the feedback.

Cheers

Bart