utexas-art-ros-pkg
              Robot Operating System package repository

                             Jack O'Quin
                             10 Apr. 2010


The stacks directory contains initial versions of several ROS stacks,
each with one or more ROS packages containing experimental versions of
ART software converted to use ROS instead of player.  Documentation
for these packages is here:

  http://www.ros.org/wiki/utexas-art-ros-pkg

Working with the ROS build system is difficult at first.  Expect a
steep learning curve.  Working through some of the ROS tutorials is
definitely worthwhile when starting out.  Documentation:

  http://www.ros.org/wiki/ROS.

The interfaces themselves are quite good.  So are the visualization
and debugging tools.  And, there is an impressive amount of useful
robotics software already available in the ROS package system.


Directions:

 (1) Check out a copy of the ART code base with ROS interfaces

     Our packages have their own Google code project tree now.  Check
     out the trunk in ~/svn/utexas-art-ros-pkg:

     $ cd
     $ mkdir svn
     $ cd ~/svn
     $ export ART=http://utexas-art-ros-pkg.googlecode.com/svn
     $ svn co $ART/trunk utexas-art-ros-pkg

     This creates a copy of the source tree without commit access.

     To commit changes yourself, create a google account and e-mail
     the project owners requesting commit access.  Then, check out an
     editable copy following these directions:

       http://code.google.com/p/utexas-art-ros-pkg/source/checkout

 (2a)[for UT CS systems]

     Set up ROS environment pointing to the shared install:

     $ cd ~/svn/utexas-art-ros-pkg
     $ bash etc/utcs-env.sh >> ~/.bashrc

 (2b)[for individually-maintained systems]

     Install ROS as in http://www.ros.org/wiki/ROS/Installation

     This is time-consuming, but not especially difficult.  Be careful
     to follow the directions exactly.  It works fine on Ubuntu and
     can be made to work for Mac OSX with some effort.  Windows will
     probably not work, but there are future plans to support it.

     Add the ROS environment setup to the end of your .bashrc:

     $ echo "source ~/ros/setup.sh" >> ~/.bashrc

     Append our packages as well as the ROS ones (this example does it
     from the shell, or you can use any editor):

     $ cat <<'EOF' >> ~/.bashrc
     export ROS_PACKAGE_PATH=${ROS_PACKAGE_PATH}:~/svn/utexas-art-ros-pkg
     EOF

 (3) If you want to run ART robot utility scripts directly from the
     shell, add this to your .bashrc:

     $ cat <<'EOF' >> ~/.bashrc

     ART_RUN=`rospack find art_run`
     if [ "$ART_RUN" != "" ] && [ -d $ART_RUN/bin ]
     then export PATH=$ART_RUN/bin:$PATH
     fi
     EOF

 (4) Log out and log back in.

 (5) Try to run some ROS commands:

     $ rospack find velodyne_common
     $ roscd velodyne_common
     $ rosmake velodyne

     This should compile cleanly.

 (6) There is a rosemacs package, highly recommended for serious
     software development on Linux or Unix. To get it working, I have
     to start emacs from a shell.  I do not know how to start it from
     the GNOME panel icon with all the required environment variables
     set.