Example Test Program

[Brian Zhan]

Hi, I was wondering if an example test program could be added soon, to better illustrate how to use this library?

Thank you in advance.

[Patrick Beeson]

Will get to this by next week. In the meantime if you pull the latest, there is a new constructor that allows y5ou to enter the base/tip link names (as strings) of the robot chain you want, and it sets up all the KDL stuff for you.

TRAC_IK::TRAC_IK ik_solver(string base_link, string tip_link, string URDF_param="/robot_description", double timeout_in_secs=0.005, double error=1e-5, TRAC_IK::SolveType type=TRAC_IK::Speed);  

[Brian Zhan]

Thanks a lot! Also, I was wondering how to make running catkin_make is supposed to work in the root directory (of the project)? When I try running catkin_make, it returns the error message: "the specified source space "/home/brian/trac_ik/src does not exist"". The src folder it is looking for is actually in trac_ik_lib.

I was able to manually run the CMake files using other methods, but was hoping that directly running catkin_make might work too.

[Patrick Beeson]

catkin_make assumes you have one or more packages in a src/ directory. So you would have PROJECT/src/trac_ik and then run catkin_make in PROJECT. Catkin puts all libraries and binaries in PROJECT/develop. I suggest reading the catkin documentation if you plan to use ROS.

[Brian Zhan]

I see, thank you! sorry about not figuring that one out

[Patrick Beeson]

In adding this constructor, I had a global search/replace that broke the MoveIt! kinematics plugin compile. This is now fixed.

[Patrick Beeson]

Version 1.4.0 now includes an examples package with a program that shows how to use TRAC-IK stand alone and how to compare it with KDL for a chain.

[Brian Zhan]

Thanks a lot! I figured that the end_effector_pose's x, y, and z values obtained, given the JointList. I was wondering how to compute the rotation angle of the end_effector_pose, using this code?