NASA Challenge_[@katiehughes1]_[Space ROS Gazebo Demos]_[closes #47]

[katie-hughes]

This is a submission for the NASA Space ROS Sim Summer Sprint Challenge written by @david-dorf and I. The main details of our submission are on the README.md introduced in the spaceros_gz_demos package we added to this repo. We introduce four new demos that run in Gazebo Harmonic with the relevant topics for sending robot controls and reading sensor information bridged to ROS. This includes simulated worlds with robots on the Moon, Mars, Enceladus, and in orbit above Earth. We also provide a Dockerfile that can be used to run these simulations in spaceros_gz_demos/docker that is built upon the base Space ROS docker image, as well as some scripts to help with building and running the image.

This PR is a lot of lines, but most of the lines come from the mesh files added for the different models. The relevant ROS code added is in spaceros_gz_demos/launch.

Relevant issue: #47

space.mp4

[mkhansenbot]

Hi @katie-hughes - thanks for your submission! There are a few housekeeping things I need you to do per our contribution guidelines. First, please file an issue with a feature request for this demo, then update your commit message and the title of this PR to include the issue #. Second, please change your docker_build.sh to build.sh so that our new CI build workflow will build the PR automatically. Third, please change your docker_start.sh to run.sh (see the latest README file, we're trying to standardize). Finally, please rebase and resolve the conflict with the README file, then re-push your branch so that our CI will run the build. Thanks!

[katie-hughes]

@mkhansenbot Thanks for letting me know. I just updated our docker related scripts to match the new CI steps, and resolved the merge conflict in the readme.
With regards to linking to a relevant issue -- I thought that we could just reference "NASA Space ROS Sim Summer Sprint Challenge" (in the attached document). I could create one if it's necessary though.

Challenge Brief - NASA Space ROS Sim Summer Sprint Challenge.pdf

Let me know if there are any other changes that need to be made!

[mkhansenbot]

Yes, please add a "Feature request" issue (there's now a template when you create a new issue), with a brief description of the demo, then update the commit messages to refer to that issue. Also add the issue number to the PR title. Thanks again!

[mkhansenbot]

@katie-hughes - I just changed the build workflow to cd into the folder first, then rebased your branch

[katie-hughes]

@mkhansenbot sounds good, will just need to update the docker related scripts so that they can run from this new location

Outdated review

[ana-GT]

Hi, I wanted to comment on this PR: I pulled it and tested it in my Jazzy/24.04 environment. The models work and look great! I've noticed, though, that for the models to be used properly (e.g. for Gazebo to found them when including them in a world), I needed to do 2 things:

1. Create a file env-hooks/spaceros_gz_demos.dsv.in in the spaceros_gz_demos package, containing:

   prepend-non-duplicate;GZ_SIM_RESOURCE_PATH;share/@PROJECT_NAME@/models
   

2. In the CMake file, add:

   ament_environment_hooks("${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/env-hooks/${PROJECT_NAME}.dsv.in")
   

Just tested the moon surface. Thanks for this contribution! Hope it can be merged soon.

[Bckempa]

Thanks for taking a look, @ana-GT!

[david-dorf]

Hi, I wanted to comment on this PR: I pulled it and tested it in my Jazzy/24.04 environment. The models work and look great! I've noticed, though, that for the models to be used properly (e.g. for Gazebo to found them when including them in a world), I needed to do 2 things:

1. Create a file env-hooks/spaceros_gz_demos.dsv.in in the spaceros_gz_demos package, containing:

   prepend-non-duplicate;GZ_SIM_RESOURCE_PATH;share/@PROJECT_NAME@/models
   

2. In the CMake file, add:

   ament_environment_hooks("${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/env-hooks/${PROJECT_NAME}.dsv.in")
   

Just tested the moon surface. Thanks for this contribution! Hope it can be merged soon.

That's strange that you'd need to create a hook for this considering the core launch file should set up the environment variable for you. Maybe it's some issue I'm unaware of?

[david-dorf]

I'm also just noticing now, thanks to a PR I received on my own repo that there's a few typos in the README.md - all world sections have the ros2 launch spaceros_gz_demos moon.launch.xml when they should correspond to their world, not just "moon".

[ana-GT]

Ah, I see. You are right, if you use the launch file, you don't need to add the hooks. I had to add them because I was creating new worlds for another project and my launch files do not have the GZ_SIM_RESOURCE_PATH . I got used to using the hooks I forgot you can set the path that way too :).

[david-dorf]

Ah, I see. You are right, if you use the launch file, you don't need to add the hooks. I had to add them because I was creating new worlds for another project and my launch files do not have the GZ_SIM_RESOURCE_PATH . I got used to using the hooks I forgot you can set the path that way too :).

No problem! Happy to hear you're making your own worlds and expanding on this, that's really cool

[mkhansenbot]

Resolved the merge conflict in the README. Now will run CI, which I expect to fail since space-ros:latest is now based on jazzy and this was originally submitted when it was humble. If possible, we'll port to jazzy but if not we'll pin the version to a humble release tag

[katie-hughes]

@mkhansenbot Thanks! We'll try to see if we can get it running with jazzy (or have the option to choose humble or jazzy). Since the only ROS code here is the bridge around gazebo harmonic, which is meant for jazzy, I expect we shouldn't run into too many issues

[katie-hughes]

@mkhansenbot Sorry for the incredibly late update on this. @david-dorf and I just pushed the fixes to make this PR work with Jazzy from the new dockerfile. Please let us know if there's any other changes necessary!