COMPAS FAB: Hands-on intro, Tokyo 18.07.2020

During this session we will install and play around with COMPAS core framework and its robotic fabrication extension: COMPAS FAB. The goal is to end up with the tools ready to do kinematics and planning on any supported robot.

Overview

• Intro & Session goals
• COMPAS 101
• COMPAS FAB
• Robotics: fundamentals, models & backends
• ROS primer
• Kinematics & Motion planning
• What's next?

Resources

• Presentation: Slides
• Documentation:
  • COMPAS API Reference
  • COMPAS FAB API Reference

Examples

Robotic fundamentals

• Frame examples:
  • Several ways to construct a Frame
  • Point in Frame
  • Frame in Frame
  • Bring a box from the world coordinate frame into another coordinate frame
  • Use artists to draw the box in Rhino
• Transformation examples:
  • Several ways to construct a Transformation
  • Inverse transformation
  • Pre-multiply transformations
  • Pre- vs. post-multiplication
  • Decompose transformation
  • Transform Point and Vector
  • Transformation of multiple points
  • Change-basis transformation vs. transformation between frames
  • Bring a box from the world coordinate frame into another coordinate frame
  • Use artists to draw the box in Rhino
• Rotation examples:
  • Several ways to construct a Rotation
  • Different Robot vendors use different conventions to describe TCP orientation
  • Euler angles example
  • Axis-angle example
  • Unit Quaternion example

Robot model and ROS

• Docker configuration to launch ROS & MoveIt
• Open MoveIt! in your browser:
  • http://localhost:8080/vnc.html?resize=scale&autoconnect=true
• Basic examples:
  • Programmatically define a robot
  • Load robots from Github
  • Load robots from ROS
  • Visualize robots in Rhino
  • Visualize robots in Grasshopper
  • Build your own robot
• Basic ROS examples:
  • Verify connection
  • The cannonical example of ROS: chatter nodes
    • Talker node
    • Listener node
• Examples of ROS & MoveIt planning with UR5:
  • Forward Kinematics
  • Inverse Kinematics
  • Cartesian motion planning
  • Free space motion planning
  • Planning scene management:
    • Add objects to the scene
    • Append nested objects to the scene
    • Remove objects from the scene
• Grasshopper Playground
• Attaching gripper/tool:
  • Attach tool to last link of the robot
  • Plan cartesian motion with attached tool

Requirements

Please make sure you have the following software installed on your laptop before the session:

1. Minimum OS: Windows 10 Pro or Mac OS Sierra 10.12

2. Anaconda 3: https://www.anaconda.com/distribution/

3. Docker Desktop: https://www.docker.com/products/docker-desktop

   NOTE: After installation on Windows, it is required to enable Virtualization on the BIOS of the computer. If you don't know how to do this, please ask on the Discord channel!

4. Rhino 6 & Grasshopper: https://www.rhino3d.com/download

5. Visual Studio Code: https://code.visualstudio.com/

   Any python editor works, but we recommend VS Code + extensions, see doc: https://gramaziokohler.github.io/compas_fab/latest/getting_started.html#working-in-visual-studio-code-1

6. Once installation is done, pull one of our docker images. To do that, open the Anaconda prompt or Terminal and execute the following:

    docker pull gramaziokohler/ros-ur-planner
   

Installation

We use conda to make sure we have clean, isolated environment for dependencies.

First time using conda? Make sure you run this at least once:

(base) conda config --add channels conda-forge

Create a new conda environment:

Windows

(base) conda create -n tokyo20 python=3.8 compas_fab=0.11 --yes
(base) conda activate tokyo20

Mac

(base) conda create -n tokyo20 python=3.8 compas_fab=0.11 python.app --yes
(base) conda activate tokyo20

Verify installation

(tokyo20) pip show compas_fab
Name: compas-fab
Version: 0.11.0
Summary: Robotic fabrication package for the COMPAS Framework
...

Install on Rhino

(tokyo20) python -m compas_fab.rhino.install

NOTE: This installs to Rhino 6.0, use -v 5.0 if needed.