Using ROS plugin under Windows?

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SeveQ
Posts: 34
Joined: 25 Jul 2013, 20:46

Using ROS plugin under Windows?

Post by SeveQ »

Hi folks,

I'm running two systems here. One is a Windows system, the other one is running Ubuntu 14.04 with ROS Indigo (yepp, ROS is running on the Linux machine). They are connected via network. I'd like to run V-REP on the Windows machine because it's much more powerful and much more suited for taking the simulator part.

A while ago I was working with a similar setup but instead of using the ROS plugin I used my own remote API wrapper tool. That worked pretty well for a rather old robot configuration. Now with a relatively new robot I'd like to use V-REP's on-board equipment.

Do you think there is a way to get the ROS plugin running in a Windows environment while the roscore and all the rest of ROS is running on a Linux machine?

I'd guess, all I have to do is cross-compile the plugin into a DLL... but how?

Thanks!

Cheers,
Hendrik

coppelia
Site Admin
Posts: 10339
Joined: 14 Dec 2012, 00:25

Re: Using ROS plugin under Windows?

Post by coppelia »

Hello Hendrik,

not really sure about how to do this. If you succeed to install ROS on Windows, then the ROS plugin should compile just fine.
But for cross-compilation, it might be a quite difficult task, the ROS plugin relies on many other ROS libraries/packages.
I guess you are better off asking your question on the ROS forums.

Cheers

snakeplissken
Posts: 10
Joined: 19 Nov 2015, 16:30

Re: Using ROS plugin under Windows?

Post by snakeplissken »

I have the same setup (ROS on a virtualbox running Ubuntu, main OS windows). Did you make any progress on this?

snakeplissken
Posts: 10
Joined: 19 Nov 2015, 16:30

Re: Using ROS plugin under Windows?

Post by snakeplissken »

Attempting this myself, not sure how far I'll get but I'll log the steps involved in case someone else wants to follow.

1. Downloaded and installed everything here http://wiki.ros.org/win_ros/hydro/Msvc%20Compiled%20SDK
2. Confirmed roscore works and the test listener/broadcaster works
3.[Not required] Tested compiling the vrep source under Ubuntu using catkin_make, all I had to do was put the folders under programming/ros_packages in the workspace/src and run catkin_make, and it did it automatically
4. Now trying on windows, the procedure is different, ran winros_init_workspace --track=hydro ws to create the workspace named 'ws', then under ws/src put all the vrep folders, as I had done in Linux.
5. Tried running winros_make (the equivalent of catkin_make), get this error:

Code: Select all

+++ invalid workspace [no C:\Program Files (x86)\V-REP3\V-REP_PRO_EDU\programmin
g\ros_packages\ws\src/CMakeLists.txt]. Create a source workspace with 'winros_in
it_workspace'.
6. Currently trying to build just vrep_common, having issues with cmake probably related to my vc++ installation. Currently looking for issue...

snakeplissken
Posts: 10
Joined: 19 Nov 2015, 16:30

Re: Using ROS plugin under Windows?

Post by snakeplissken »

To do it completely by the book i used the precompiled libs and VC2010 Express, with 32bit python. All seems to go ok until the linking stage and I get this linking error involving boost. However I have extracted boost libs to the correct place. Currently Stuck.

Code: Select all

rospack.cpp.obj : error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol "void __cdecl boost::throw_exception(class std::exception const &)" (?throw_exception@boost@@YAXABVexception@std@@@Z)referenced in function "public: __thiscall boost::detail::shared_count::shared_count<struct boost::filesystem3::detail::dir_itr_imp>(struct boost::filesystem3::detail::dir_itr_ip *)" (??$?0Udir_itr_imp@detail@filesystem3@boost@@@shared_count@detail@boost@@QAE@PAUdir_itr_imp@1filesystem3@2@@Z)
rospack_backcompat.cpp.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol "void __cdecl boost::throw_exception(class std::exception const &)" (?throw_exception@boost@@YAXABVexceptin@std@@@Z)
rospack_cmdline.cpp.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol "void __cdecl boost::throw_exception(class std::exception const &)" (?throw_exception@boost@@YAXABVexception@td@@@Z)
utils.cpp.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol "void __cdecl boost::throw_exception(class std::exception const &)" (?throw_exception@boost@@YAXABVexception@std@@@Z)
C:\Users\snake\ws\devel\bin\rospack.dll : fatal error LNK1120: 1 unresolved externals

snakeplissken
Posts: 10
Joined: 19 Nov 2015, 16:30

Re: Using ROS plugin under Windows?

Post by snakeplissken »

I also tried just using the precompiled library and just directly compiling the plugin, but it seems there is a difference between win_ros building and catkin building. I confirmed by trying to build the simple test program for ROS here http://wiki.ros.org/catkin/Tutorials/CreatingPackage but i get the same error:

Code: Select all

find_package(catkin) failed.  catkin was neither found in the workspace nor
  in the CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH.  One reason may be that no ROS setup.sh was
  sourced before.
If I could figure out how to build a simple project under Windows I feel like I could get the plugin to build too, but alas there is not much help online...

coppelia
Site Admin
Posts: 10339
Joined: 14 Dec 2012, 00:25

Re: Using ROS plugin under Windows?

Post by coppelia »

Hello,

unfortunately we haven't gone into trying this on Windows. Sorry that we can't be of a big help here.

Cheers

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