CSC376 Simulation Environment

Modified from : mrkoz/mybot_ws

Introduction

This repository contains a docker container that hosts a the simulation environment for "CSC376: Fundamental of Robotics" at the University of Toronto. It runs Ubuntu 20.04 with Gazebo (11.10.2), Eigen (3.3.7) and CMake (3.16.3). Upon building and running the container, one can access the simulation environment's desktop with a VNC viewer.

Dependencies

In order to run this docker container the host machines (Ubuntu/macOS/Windows) should have

• docker
• docker-compose
• A vnc viewer (tested tigervnc)
• cmake (tested 3.16.3)

Install Dependencies

• Ubuntu

  • Check CMake installation or else install it

  cmake --version 
  # if this throws a cmake not found error 
  sudo apt-get install cmake 
  

  • Install docker

  sudo apt-get install docker.io
  sudo docker run hello-world # tests docker installation
  

  • Install docker-compose

  sudo apt-get install docker-compose
  

  • Install a vncviewer eg: tigervnc

  sudo apt-get install tigervnc-viewer
  

• macOS

  • Install Cmake

  brew install cmake 
  

  • Docker Desktop installation-
    • Download .dmg file from here to install docker on Mac.
    • Once downloaded, double-click the .dmg file
    • This will lead to a popup menu where you could drag and drop docker application to your applications which would install docker desktop
    • You could also follow the instructions here for more details

  To verify installation run the commands below and you should not get any error.

  docker --version 
  docker machine --version 
  docker-compose --version
  

• Windows

  • Docker and Docker compose will be installed when installing Docker Desktop. Install from here.
    • run the docker desktop and ensure docker is able to start and run without any issues
      • A wsl error might occur. follow instructions it provides to install wsl.
  • Install make using choco following commands here and then run in PowerShell or command prompt as an Adminisitrator,

  choco install make
  

  • Download and Install VNC viewer from here

Usage

Build and run docker container and VNC server

• Ubuntu

  • run,

  cd  <path to this repo>/csc376f23
  sudo make up
  

• macOS

  • First ensure docker-desktop is running
  • run,

  cd  <path to this repo>/csc376f23
  make up
  

  If there is an error that says- "xcrun: error: invalid active developer path (/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools), missing xcrun at: /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/xcrun", run the command below,

  xcode-select --install
  

• Windows

  • First ensure docker-desktop is running
  • Then open a powershell terminal in the location of this repo csc376f23 as an Administrator
  • now run,

  make up
  

  • Once the compilation is done, open the vnc viewer and type in the following URL to access the Ubuntu docker environment's desktop.

  127.0.0.1:5900
  

Run VNC client to access dev environment

After running the docker container using make up command, run the vnc viewer to access the development environment desktop. In a new terminal run,

• Ubuntu

  vncviewer 127.0.0.1:5900
  

  The password is ubuntu
• macOS

  open vnc://127.0.0.1:5900
  

Once VNC client is running and you can access the desktop

• (Ubuntu/macOS/Windows) Common Instructions

  1. one can access the terminal by pressing the home button(button left corner in VNC desktop) -> System Tools -> LXTerminal

  2. To test build environment

  • Inside vnc (make sure to replace X with a number from 0-3, depending on the assignment),

    cd /home/ubuntu/csc376/csc376-assignmentX
    mkdir build 
    cd build 
    cmake ..
    make 
    

  • run simulation of the robot and its world in gazebo (make sure to replace X with a number from 0-3, depending on the assignment),

    cd /home/ubuntu/csc376/csc376-assignmentX
    gazebo csc376_assignment.world --verbose
    

  • Open a new terminal and run your code (make sure to replace X with a number from 0-3, depending on the assignment),

    cd /home/ubuntu/csc376/csc376-assignmentX/build/
    ./csc376-assignment
    

Notes

• If you are using the code base in an ubuntu computer, with dependancies installed and you are not using the docker environment provided, you need to set environment variables for gazebo to find your meshes/models. For this, you need to run the below commands once

cd <path to csc376f23>/csc376f23/csc376_root
chmod +x set_env_variable.sh
./set_env_variable.sh
source ~/.bashrc

• In addition to running the simulation environment on your own machine using the provided Docker environment, students can also use their UTORid to log in to the Alienware machines in the teaching lab MN3110, which runs Ubuntu and has Gazebo preinstalled. For this, simply copy the folder csc376f23 from the above repository into your home directory. The simulation environment's starter code is then contained in the folder csc376_root. You can directly modify and compile this code - there is no need to set up and use the Docker environment, when working on these machines.
• All changes made in the local machine in the csc376_root directory will be reflected inside the docker container. So make use of this directory for code development.
• You will find individual folders for each assignment of the course in this csc376_root. For now, starter code for Assignment 0 (content of Practical 1) is provided. The starter code for Assignments 1-3 will be released via MarkUs once the corresponding assignment goes online.
• Assignment 0 is the content of Practical 1 and is used as an introuction to the simulation framework. Despite its name, Assignment 0 is not a graded assignment for CSC376.

References for docker environment

• richardw05/mybot_ws
• mrkoz/mybot_ws