cyberbotics / robot-designer

Web robot designer for Webots robotics simulator

Robot Designer

The Robot Designer tool lets users build custom robots in an easy and quick way. With the automatic snap mechanism you simply have to drag parts at the desired position and the tool will position it for you.

Demo

https://cyberbotics.github.io/robot-designer/

Run locally

1. Create an HTTP server on the parent directory:

cd $REPO_CLONE
cd ..
python -m SimpleHTTPServer

2. Open "http://localhost:8000/robot-designer/"

Toolbar

• Export: export the modeled robot to JSON, Webots, and NRP compatible (coming soon..) format.
• Undo: erase the last change done to the robot.
• Redo: reverse the undo change.
• Selection tool: disable the translation and rotation tools.
• Translation tool: enable displaying the translation gizmo for the selected part. Note that translation constraints could be set for the slot connection of the selected part.
• Rotation tool: enable displaying the rotation gizmo for the selected part. Note that rotation constraints can be set for the slot connection of the selected part.
• Delete: delete the selected robot part.
• Fullscreen: enter/exit full screen mode.

Library

The library contains all the available robot parts. The parts are grouped by robotics kit and the kit can be chosen using the combo box. Only parts that can be added to the current robot model are enabled. Parts that need a slot connection that it is currently not available with the robot model are shown in the library but they are disabled.

Part Viewer

The part viewer shows the properties of the selected part and lets the user customize it In particular it includes the name of the part and all the parameters, if any, that can be modified.

How to build a robot

Adding Parts

To build your custom robot you simply have to click on a part in the library, drag it on the 3D scene and drop it at the desired position.

When you drag the part in the 3D scene you will see a ghost image of the part itself and all the available slot positions where you can place it will be displayed in green.

If you then drag the part on a slot, the selected slot will be displayed in blue and the ghost image of the part will be automatically displayed in the final position using an automatic snap mechanism.

Translating and Rotating Parts

If the automatic snap mechanism doesn't put the parts at the desired position, it is possible to translate or rotate it enabling the translation or rotation tool. First, you have to select the translation/rotation tool from the toolbar, then you select the part you want to move. At this point the translation/rotation gizmo will be displayed for the selected part and you can move it.

Note that some slot types have special constraints on rotation and translation. For this reason it can happen that the rotation and translation is limited to some axes or that it is not available at all.

Deleting Parts

You can delete parts by selecting them and clicking on the Delete button in the toolbar. Note that all the children parts connected to the selected part will also be deleted.

Interaction with the 3D Scene

Object Selection

If you move your mouse pointer over a robot part, a white outline of the part is displayed. It is possible to select an object or a robot in the 3D scene by clicking on it using the left mouse button. Once selected, a blue outline is displayed.

Navigation in 3D

Rotate Viewpoint

To rotate the camera around the x and y axis, you have to set the mouse pointer in the 3D scene, press the left mouse button, and drag the mouse. The rotation is centered around the scene center.

Translate Viewpoint

To translate the camera in the x and y directions, you have to set the mouse pointer in the 3D scene, press the right mouse button, and drag the mouse.

Zoom

To zoom in or out the 3D scene, set the mouse pointer in the 3D scene and use the wheel or press the middle button of the mouse and drag the mouse.

Export

The created robot model can be exported in three different formats.

Export to JSON

This functionality exports the model in a generic JSON format describing the structure of the robot and the position and customizable parameters of the parts.

Export to Webots

This functionality generates a Webots WBT file containing the created robot that can directly imported in Webots.

Export to NRP (coming soon..)

This functionality generates a robot model compatible wit the Neurorobotics Platform (https://neurorobotics.net/).

robot-designer's Issues

Base node cannot be deleted

The Tinkerbots root node cannot be deleted using the delete button.

Migrate hard-coded position constraints to assets.json

For now the position constraints are hard-coded here:

https://github.com/omichel/robot-designer/blob/master/app/view/handle.js#L109

It would be good to migrate them to asset/assets.json.

Once a part is deleted, the selection mode may behaves strangely

To reproduce:

• Add a Tinkerbots base
• Add 2 Tinkerbots cube and a cubie on the base
• Remove one Tinkerbots cube
• Change mode to "move"
• Select the cubie
  => the handle is not displayed

Disable mouse over part highlight while translating/rotating a part

After clicking on a translation gizmo and dragging the part the mouse over part highlight continues to change based on the position of the mouse.
Given that in any case the selection cannot be changes during the drag it seems better to disable the highlight changes based on the mouse position.

Improve Asset.parameters

For now, the customizable parameters are TinkerbotsAxle.length (actually not implemented), TinkerbotsCubiePyramid.color and TinkerbotsCubieTriangle.color. In Webots, they are all string enumerations, and affects the Shape (color or shape).

In the contrary of translation or rotation where the THREEjs <-> Webots link is direct, this kind of links should be coded somewhere. For now it's hard-coded here: https://github.com/omichel/robot-designer/blob/master/app/view/mediator/part_mediator.js#L78

To solve this, we should either provide a generic way to write these links, or to have several x3d files (e.g. one x3d file per parameter set).

RobotViewer refresh

For now, the THREEjs view is refreshed at 60fps systematically. Now that the design become more stable it would be good to have a finer control on the refresh, by refreshing only when some event occurs. These events are certainly the command updates, x3d load, textures load, direct GUI modifications (mouse move?).

Error undoing a multiple parts deletion

Steps to reproduce:

1. add tinkerbots root part
2. add a cubie (A)
3. add a cubie (B) to the cubie (A)
4. delete cubie (A) -> cubie (B) is deleted as well
5. undo last deletion action

-> everything seems to work correctly but this error is displayed in the console

Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'traverse' of undefined
    at PartMediator.onPartAdded (part_mediator.js:23)
    at PartMediator.model.addObserver (part_mediator.js:13)
    at observers.forEach (Observable.js:18)
    at Array.forEach (<anonymous>)
    at Part.notify (Observable.js:17)
    at part.js:43
    at Part._applyFooRecursively (part.js:92)
    at Part.addPart (part.js:42)
    at commands.js:95
    at UndoStack.undo (UndoStack.js:39)

Update slot names according to Webots

In https://github.com/omichel/webots/pull/552, the Tinkerbots type name has changed to use the Slot gender mechanism.

Updating https://github.com/omichel/robot-designer/blob/master/assets/assets.json would be good for consistency.

Show asset name in part browser on hover

In the part browser it would be good to show the name of the part when the mouse pointer is over it.

Improve class name consistency

I think it would be good to rename view/view3d.js to view/robot_viewer.js (and the related class) to be consistent with view/part_browser.js and view/part_viewer.js

Issues undoing mesh color changes

As already reported in #11, there are some issues undoing operations with meshes for which the color has been changed.

For example:

1. undoing a color change (yellow -> blue)
   -> the mesh remains blue

2. undoing a delete of a blue part
   -> the mesh appears as yellow, in the part viewer the color is set to yellow, but it seems that internally the blue is stored because changing manually back the color to blue doesn't work the first time. It works if set it to blue, then to yellow (visible color matches internal color?) and then again to blue.

Add keyboard shortcuts

It will be user-friendly to enable some keyboard shortcuts, for example:

• Delete: delete selected
• Ctrl + Z: Undo
• Ctrl + Y: Redo
• Ctrl + S: save
• M - Toggle between selection and translation and rotation gizmo (as in mecabricks or any other keyboard shortcuts)

And to add copy/paste buttons and shortcuts

Overall Modules and Classes Design

Here is a new iteration on the module and class design:
https://github.com/omichel/robot-designer/wiki/Design

Since the last version and according the Olivier:

• The view3D and the partView have been separated into 2 modules.
• Classes and modules are listed in a more exhaustive way.
• A top module has been introduced.

Moreover:

• I renamed "View3D" to "RobotView"
• I dropped the UIControl classes which could be implicitly added the main class of each module (RobotView, etc.)
• I added a PartBrowser module.
• I didn't show all the interactions with the data blocks (DOM, ThreeJS), because they are implicit in most of the cases.

This document needs to be validated and improved with the implementation.

Gap between selection in 3d view and mouse position

Sometimes it happens that there is a gap between selection in the 3D view and the mouse pointer position on the screen.
This is not systematical but i can reproduce it quite often on Chrome especially after working with other applications and returning the robot designer web page.

I had similar issues with webots.js that were due to faulty mouse position initialization.

Fix IE and Edge support

robot-designer is not working on Edge and IE

Undo translation and rotation changes as a single operation

It could be more user-friendly if a translation/rotation using the handles (from mouse down till mouse up) is considered as a single operation.
Otherwise, undoing this change would need many undo actions.

Milestone build default tinkerbots models

The current version of the robot designer is very close to allow to build all the default models.
But there are a couple of issues with the slots that prevents it:

• missing slots definition for cubie_box_with_round_slots
• translation step is too big for the front face of the cubie_box_with_round_slots and cubie_box_with_cross_slots -> it is not possible to move the attached part precisely to the wanted position

Additionally:

• it should be possible to define multiple slot type for round female slots: they can be connect with both cross and round male parts

Multiple parts per slot

Currently for some faces of the TInkerbots cubies, like the up face, only one slot is defined even if multiple "holes" are available in the slot.
This could be fine for users but in this case we need to support adding multiple parts per slots which is not the case now.

It would also be possible to specify a maximum number of parts per slot.