gazebo-terrain-generator

A terrain generator to create worlds to use in gazebo

Get started

Assuming you're using ubuntu 20.04 and have python3 installed. Currently I'm using python 3.8.10, earlier version may work, however, they have not been tested.

Inital install

Steps for when you first clone the project

# Clone the project from git
git clone https://github.com/paul-mcn/gazebo-terrain-generator.git

# cd into the root project dir
cd gazebo-terrain-generator

# Create an isolated python environment. It allows you install packages locally rather than globally.
python3 -m venv venv

# Activate environment 
source venv/bin/activate

# Install requirements
pip install -r requirements.txt

To run the world

To generate terrain and run it inside gazebo, you must first run the python file, then launch the gazebo world. You can do this by running:

# Generate terrain
python main.py

# Launch Gazebo. This is done in the root of the project dir, however, it can be done anywhere.
# Just make sure you adjust the path arg.
gazebo ./worlds/generated_world.world

Subsequent runs

Each time you open a new terminal, you will have to run the below code in the root project dir. Otherwise your global pacakges will be used and the file won't launch correctly

# ❌ will fail
python main.py

# ✅ will work
source venv/bin/activate
python main.py

Deactivate environment

Once you're done with the project, deactivate it by using the deactivate cmd in your terminal

Export paths

As of yet, custom paths are not support. It is important to note that the generated_world.world file sources the ground_mesh using model://ground_mesh. Thus, if you wish to choose a different dir, make sure to add it to the GAZEBO_MODEL_PATH.

Worlds export to gazebo-terrain-generator/worlds under the name generated_world.world by default Models export to $HOME/.gazebo/models under the name ground_mesh by default. Additionally, it contains the following files:

• model.config
• model.sdf
• model.obj

Libraries used

PCG Gazeo - https://boschresearch.github.io/pcg_gazebo_pkgs/

Trimesh - https://trimsh.org/trimesh.html

Numpy - https://numpy.org/doc/stable/

Pyglet - https://pyglet.readthedocs.io/en/pyglet-1.5-maintenance/ note: 1.5 is used, not 2+

Noise - somewhere in the abyss