ViSP Simulation App is a generic simulator for medical robotics.
The simulator works with 3D scenes that can contain different objects such as: static objects, robots, and cameras. Static objects are simple 3D model files with the extensions: stl, obj or dae. These 3D models are static during simulation.
Robots are the second type of scene elements. Currently, the simulator supports one continuum robot (concentric tube robot) with deformable parts. In addition, the app comes with two serial robots: KUKA iiwa and Viper650. It is worth noting, that any user can easily add a new serial robot: all you need to do is to provide forward kinematics model and files with 3D models of robot links. (Tutorial for this coming soon, stay tuned :))
The platform offers two mechanisms for controlling robots during the simulation. First, you can execute commands through a small menu located at the top-right corner of the page. Or you can control your robot using a TCP-IP protocol as VISA app acts like a server. The link to the full list of supported commands will be here.
The last type of model object is cameras. VISA enables placing a virtual camera anywhere in the scene. First of all, the camera may have a fixed position in space. Alternatively, it can be positioned in relation to another objection. For example, it can be placed on the robot’s end-effector. This way the camera will follow the robot’s movements. The image can be obtained using TCP-IP protocol. Currently, we are working on a pull request to add an adapter class between simulator and visual servoing library ViSP.
You can run VISA on Mac, Linux, and Windows. To do this, you'll need Git and Node.js (which comes with npm) installed on your computer. Just follow this link for more information. I would suggest to install an LTS version.
Then, from your command line:
# clone this repository
# go into the repository
# install dependencies
# run the app
git clone https://github.com/avkudr/visa
cd visa
npm install
npm start
If you want to start the software in development mode ( displaying fps and console) use:
npm run dev # instead of "npm start"
Please feel free to give us suggestions or report a bug by creating a new issue via Github