[bug] URDF Preview not rendering - Due to RobotWebTools.org being down.

[SruthikReddy003]

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• ROS 1: Dist
• ROS 2: Dist

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i have a problem previewing the ROS URDF files in the vs code
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what is the bug

<current behavior>

Repro steps

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expected behavior

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additional context

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[v01tt]

Hi, I have the same Issue. ROS Preview URDF, renders a completely blank screen. No Grids.
Tried re-installing the ROS plugin, and vscode too. No Luck.
Need help ...

ROS1: Noetic
Linux: 20.04
VScode: 1.76.2
ROS Plugin: 0.9.1

[ooeygui]

Thanks for reporting. The URDF renderer uses RobotWebTools. Is there a proxy or something in the way?

[ooeygui]

It looks like RobotWebTools.org is down, which the vscode ROS extension depends on per the recommendation of the docs. Following up with the maintainers.

[Tjaart-Hobby]

Upgrading from very old laptop to new 'you_beuty" i9 gaming laptop and having the same drama. Ubuntu 20.04, downloaded .dep and apt installed as per CODE website. URDF preview blank (same as above) but still functioning normal on older laptop.
both connected through same wifi network.
please help.
note: long running project using Ubuntu 20.04 and noetic. so upgrading to newer Ubuntu distro's unaplicable /for now

Thanks for the reply.
Is there a way to copy required files over from old laptop with VS-code's working URDF-preview plane?

update: I have renamed folders ~/.config/Code and ~/.vscode and then replaced them with copied folders from old laptop with working urdf pre-view. Unfortunately it didn't work.
Is there a way to get this to work, please.

[ooeygui]

RobotWebTools.org is down, which is where the pane is sourced. I'm working on contacting the owner to get an ETA for restoration of the website.

I'm also working on a rewrite of the pane to use Babylon.JS which doesn't require an external website - but that's a long lead time item.

[hamyyy]

Any updates on this? I could really use this feature.

I managed to find most of the js files required here

All are there except Threejs's ColladaLoader.js. And most of the files are minified. But that may not pose an issue.
Navigating through wayback machine is a bit of a pain, so I've also attached files here:

EventEmitter2.min.txt
ros3d.min.txt
roslib.min.txt
STLLoader.txt
three.min.txt

Note: I renamed the file extensions to .txt so Github will accept them. Just replace .txt with .js.

You probably don't even need these files as the libraries are still available, its just a matter of finding a new CDN.

roslib CDN
ros3d CDN
EventEmitter2 CDN

Maybe you can use these as a temporary fix? Thanks :D

[polyhobbyist]

Preliminary rewrite in PR - #926. I have to fix a Collada triangle inversion problem in the loader; and fix a CI issue on build.

[saddekbouriah]

Is it always down ? thank you for your reponse !

[ooeygui]

the New URDF preview is in main. you can sideload by downloading the vsix from this page (at the bottom)
https://github.com/ms-iot/vscode-ros/actions/runs/4765688535 and follow one of the methods here - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/42017617/how-to-install-vs-code-extension-manually

NOTE: I'm still testing this, and will likely find bugs. This is almost 100% new code in the last 3 weeks, including a ground up Collada loader...

If you do find a rendering or parsing issue, please file a new bug, attach or point to a URDF which exhibits the issue, and if you can, minimize it to just the blocks that have problems.

Thank you!

[saddekbouriah]

Thank you , however i have a green grid now but nothing displayed
PS : it works with rviz

[polyhobbyist]

@saddekbouriah Can you post a link to the URDF you are testing with? If not the whole thing, can you reduce it to just the part that's broken?

[saddekbouriah]

yes it's actually a wiki ros tutorial
https://github.com/noshluk2/ros1_wiki/blob/944783c70e6b28c88cf667a1cb9ddc9ccdcd922e/mobile_robot/urdf/rover.urdf.xacro
i have tried with other files but I get the same result + this error Command failed: bash --login -c "xacro '/catkin_ws/src/premier_robot/urdf/test.urdf' && env" mesg: ttyname failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device bash: xacro: command not found

ps : i have the xacro command installed and it works fine and i have no errors expect this one

[Tjaart-Hobby]

Hi thanks for the effort, attached 2x screen shots> one green (love the look) with bot display wrong. >the next screen shot from old laptop same file. Also as requested the

urdf file used.
travel_bot.zip

Note. not making use of Xacro's. Once feature are working I will continue build and work out the Xacro's

also noted that 'left-click and drag' or 'right click and drag' and 'wheel-click and drag' > all does the same thing. Could the one pan/tilt/shift view and another move world view?

Edit: just opened the attached file and it had a blank urdf pre-view. the urdf file need to be in a package/ within a ROS1 workspace.

So: 'a_ros1_ws'/src/'package'/urdf/'the_downloaded_urdf_file' ........mmmmm.... one would also need the "meshes file" for the meshes used in the urdf and change the path to the "meshes file" from within the downloaded urdf file.

It will be easier to just publish my ros1 workspace to github and add the link here. {back in a bit} failed at that>
So: make work space:mkdir -p ~/travelBot_ws/src ....... cd /travelBot_ws ........ catkin_make .......source devel/setup.bash

then cd into travelBot_ws/src and catkin_create_pkg travel_bot_description .... cd travel_bot_description

you should now be in your package called"travel_bot_description", within your workspace called "travelBot_ws".
unzip the urdf folder here and add meshes folder (unzipped)
meshes.zip

If folder travelBot_ws now opened using VS code the urdf-preview should display the urdf as pictured above.

I will attempt again later to publish my workspace to Github again, just running into one error after another//success

git clone -b master https://github.com/Tjaart-Hobby/travelBot_ws.git .....must clone branch not main..
Also don't clone to a folder because paths set for meshes as based on home/root directory.
so just clone to /home/<user_name> or cd ~ to get to home directory.

[Tjaart-Hobby]

any update please.

[ooeygui]

@Tjaart-Hobby Thank you for your interest! The URDF previewer is mostly working in the current CI builds - https://github.com/ms-iot/vscode-ros/actions/runs/4812717992, which you can sideload by downloading vscode-ros-dev-vsix. There are a few bugs which I'd like to resolve before pushing to the pre-release pipeline.

[ooeygui]

v0.9.4 with the new URDF preview has been pushed to Pre-release on the marketplace. You can select pre-release by going to the marketplace page and select "switch to pre-release"

[ooeygui]

Closing this as it the new URDF previewer has been pushed to pre-release.

[luewh]

v0.9.4 pre-release's URDF Preview require xacro to run. Is it avoidable ?

[ooeygui]

@luewh Thanks for the feedback. I've been on the fence about usingxacro on urdfs. However, a significant portion of urdfs are actually xacros - including in mainline ROS components such as Nav2 and Turtlebot.
However, there are many cases where xacro isn't available - such as on the ROS release from Open Robotics or RoboStack. I'm considering a solution which introspects the URDF and uses Xacro only when it detects xacro tags - then warn when Xacro isn't stalled.

[ooeygui]

@luewh I created this to track this fix - #1084