Installation Instructions

To use the toolbox a ROS indigo installation with catkin set-up and the following extra packages are required:

libeigen3-dev
ros-indigo-tf
ros-indigo-rviz
ros-indigo-octomap
ros-indigo-octomap-msgs

Once these are there, a baseline example on how to get and install the tool is the following:

$ mkdir catkin_ws_repos # assuming you want to enter a new catkin directory
$ cd catkin_ws_repos # alternatively just cd your normal catkin workspace
$ mkdir src # assuming this folder does not exist
$ cd src/
$ catkin_init_workspace
$ git clone git@github.com:ethz-asl/StructuralInspectionPlanner.git
$ cd ..
$ catkin_make
$ source devel/setup.bash

The build process should then be executed and successfully complete. Subsequently open two separate shells and run the following two commands to execute the baseline demo of the algorithm:

Shell #1

roslaunch koptplanner kopt.launch

Shell #2

rosrun request request 

The output should look similar to this:

[ INFO] [1424861236.821882299]: Calculating
[ INFO] [1424861239.691402858]: Request received
[ INFO] [1424861239.695396523]: STARTING ITERATION 0
[ INFO] [1424861241.011815322]: New tour cost = 56880.76
[ INFO] [1424861241.470583087]: STARTING ITERATION 1
[ INFO] [1424861242.992391763]: New tour cost = 39136.78
[ INFO] [1424861245.584589555]: STARTING ITERATION 2
[ INFO] [1424861246.970115608]: New tour cost = 38676.38
[ INFO] [1424861247.090536158]: New tour cost = 38646.93
[ INFO] [1424861248.045477915]: STARTING ITERATION 3
[ INFO] [1424861249.312673064]: New tour cost = 38142.36
[ INFO] [1424861249.540115327]: STARTING ITERATION 4
[ INFO] [1424861250.813313267]: New tour cost = 36167.05
[ INFO] [1424861251.162431963]: STARTING ITERATION 5
[ INFO] [1424861252.339910815]: New tour cost = 33695.19
[ INFO] [1424861252.498651324]: STARTING ITERATION 6
[ INFO] [1424861254.117184799]: STARTING ITERATION 7
[ INFO] [1424861255.551476755]: STARTING ITERATION 8
[ INFO] [1424861256.666804830]: New tour cost = 32291.78
[ INFO] [1424861256.850452346]: STARTING ITERATION 9
[ INFO] [1424861257.910331468]: New tour cost = 30811.15
[ INFO] [1424861258.088930575]: STARTING ITERATION 10
[ INFO] [1424861259.105583950]: New tour cost = 26947.03
[ INFO] [1424861259.197022955]: STARTING ITERATION 11
[ INFO] [1424861260.212032405]: New tour cost = 25538.89
[ INFO] [1424861260.303917900]: STARTING ITERATION 12
[ INFO] [1424861261.343619738]: New tour cost = 25085.24
[ INFO] [1424861261.436994463]: STARTING ITERATION 13
[ INFO] [1424861262.564734167]: STARTING ITERATION 14
[ INFO] [1424861263.714934205]: STARTING ITERATION 15
[ INFO] [1424861264.737435738]: New tour cost = 24694.55
[ INFO] [1424861264.828687286]: STARTING ITERATION 16
[ INFO] [1424861265.839331517]: New tour cost = 24478.94
[ INFO] [1424861265.930559529]: STARTING ITERATION 17
[ INFO] [1424861266.955946628]: New tour cost = 24455.67
[ INFO] [1424861267.047811380]: STARTING ITERATION 18
[ INFO] [1424861268.151226558]: STARTING ITERATION 19
[ INFO] [1424861269.166251372]: New tour cost = 24283.03
[ INFO] [1424861269.255795094]: Calculation time was:                 29564 ms
[ INFO] [1424861269.256008179]: LKH time consumption:                 8326 ms
[ INFO] [1424861269.256114059]: Initial RRT* time consumption:        7 ms
[ INFO] [1424861269.256196192]: Distance evaluation time:             6528 ms
[ INFO] [1424861269.256296485]: Viewpoint samplin time consumption:   12972 ms
[ INFO] [1424861269.256395659]: sending back response

The output indicates the progress of the algorithm, both in terms of iterations, as well as the current best tour cost. The summary of the execution gives the time consumption for the different parts of the algorithm. To visualize the planning process in rviz, refer to the Visualization section of this manual.