Scene CreateAxisVisual message equivalent?

[Levi-Armstrong]

I was looking for an equivalent message to use for creating visual axis in my application, but it appears one does not exist. I do see an axis message but I believe it is related to joint axis not a visual axis. I would like to create a message for this visual type and contribute back but wanted to reach out to see what name the maintainers would like to used to represent a scene visual axis?

[chapulina]

You're talking about ignition::rendering::Scene::CreateAxisVisual, right?

I do see an axis message but I believe it is related to joint axis not a visual axis.

Yes, axis.proto is for joints.

I would like to create a message for this visual type and contribute back but wanted to reach out to see what name the maintainers would like to used to represent a scene visual axis?

The intended usage is for the user to send a message and an XYZ axis shows up in the scene, right? Do you have an idea of what parameters it would have? RViz's axes display exposes length and radius. I think maybe visual_axis / VisualAxis could be a good name? And it could probably be added as a marker type:

https://github.com/ignitionrobotics/ign-msgs/blob/e54b5532cb375d65eedab8bd7d9db6124a225966/proto/ignition/msgs/marker.proto#L33-L49

Maybe @iche033 has other ideas.

[Levi-Armstrong]

You're talking about ignition::rendering::Scene::CreateAxisVisual, right?

That is correct.

The intended usage is for the user to send a message and an XYZ axis shows up in the scene, right?

That is correct. I image it would just include a pose and scale, but I will double check what options the VisualAxis scene type has.

[iche033]

It maybe easier to user makers since that's already been set up in ign-gazebo. If it's just drawing 3 cylinders to represent the axes, markers should be to do the job. But if you need to draw arrows, we'll need to add a cone type to markers.

[Levi-Armstrong]

@iche033 From what I understand the scene method CreateAxisVisual already handles drawing the axis with arrows, should this method be used instead of manually creating cylinders and cones?

[iche033]

I just noticed this TODO note in the implementation so it's not working yet :( So you would need to use cylinders and cones for now.

I'll ticket an issue for the missing implementation

update: ticketed issue gazebosim/gz-rendering#85

[Levi-Armstrong]

I do not believe the TODO is valid anymore since it is implemented in the base class for VisualArrow and VisualAxis. As long as the derived class implements cylinder and cone creation then arrow and axis come for free. Do you agree?

[iche033]

gazebosim/gz-rendering#87 removes the TODO note and added hooks to make Axis/ArrowVisuals work in ogre2

[azeey]

Closing this in favor of gazebosim/gz-rendering#493