GZ Random Objects

Gazebo Random Objects is a plugin for Gazebo that will randomly place objects in mesh files on a 2D plane.

Download

Download and unpack or clone this repositories contents into your ros2 workspace; ex ~/ros2_ws/src/gz_random_objects.

Build

The plugin is built using the standard ROS 2 build process. Building is done using colcon which will invoke cmake and run the necessary commands. Run the following command in your ros2 workspace; ex ~/ros2_ws/.

colcon build --symlink-install --packages-select  gz_random_objects

Source install

Make sure to run the following command after install and login. Run the following command in your ros2 workspace; ex ~/ros2_ws/.

source install/setup.bash

You may want to have your development user environment do this on login via ~/.bashrc file; add the following to the end of that file.

source ~/ros2_ws/install/setup.bash

Plugin Usage

In order to use the plugin, it needs to be added to a SDF world, or model to be included in some SDF world, or part of a URDF.

<plugin filename="libgz_random_objects.so" name="gz::sim::systems::GzRandomObjects">
    <!-- Parent ID in SDF -->
    <parent>4</parent>
    <!--Number of Objects, same number as mesh files at this time -->
    <objects>7</objects>
    <!-- x/y min and max, difference becomes range, along with scale -->
    <x_min>-750</x_min>
    <x_max>750</x_max>
    <x_scale>0.5</x_scale>
    <y_min>-2250</y_min>
    <y_max>2250</y_max>
    <y_scale>0.5</y_scale>
    <!-- z scale only at this time -->
    <z_scale>0.5</z_scale>
    <!-- Mesh files to use, can use https:// or file:// -->
    <mesh>file://$(find gz_random_objects)/meshes/rocks/rock1.dae</mesh>
    <mesh>file://$(find gz_random_objects)/meshes/rocks/rock2.dae</mesh>
    <mesh>file://$(find gz_random_objects)/meshes/rocks/rock3.dae</mesh>
    <mesh>file://$(find gz_random_objects)/meshes/rocks/rock4.dae</mesh>
    <mesh>file://$(find gz_random_objects)/meshes/rocks/rock5.dae</mesh>
    <mesh>file://$(find gz_random_objects)/meshes/rocks/rock6.dae</mesh>
    <mesh>file://$(find gz_random_objects)/meshes/rocks/rock7.dae</mesh>
</plugin>