pyrosim: A python robot simulator.

Documentation

(Work in progress) documentation available here

Pyrosim enables the creation of robots with arbitrary body plans and neural controllers, and the optimization of them in arbitrary simulated environments.

Installation instructions.

Download or clone the GitHub repository.

If you downloaded the zipped version, unzip the directory somewhere you can access it.

Note: Pyrosim is intended for use with Python2.x. It does not yet run smoothly with Python3.x.

For Windows users:

Install Anaconda--a package that includes Python and useful Python libraries--if you don't already have it by choosing `Download for Windows', the Python2.7 version, and the 64-bit version if you have a 64-bit machine and 32-bit otherwise. (You can find out whether you have a 32-bit or 64-bit machine here.)

Now open the file called pyrosim.py in the pyrosim directory using your favorite text editor.

Change line 20 from

commandsToSend = ['./simulator']

commandsToSend = ['./simulator7.exe']

if you have Windows 7 or 8, or change the line to

commandsToSend = ['./simulator10.exe']

if you have a Windows 10 machine.

Save the file and close it.

Now open Demo_00_Empty_Sim.py, again using your favorite text editor, and change this line

sim = PYROSIM()

to this

sim = PYROSIM(evalTime=10000)

Save the file and close it.

Now open a command prompt and navigate into the Pyrosim directory.

Now run Demo_00_Empty_Sim.py by typing

c:\pyrosim> python Demo_00_Empty_Sim.py

If you get an error message such as python: command not found, this means that your computer does not know where to find the python interpreter. Locate the directory where you installed Anaconda. There should be a file called python.exe in there. Now change your path environment variable to include the directory that contains python.exe. Execute c:\pyrosim> python Demo_00_Empty_Sim.py again.

When the command works, you should see a new window open onto an empty virtual environment, like this.

If that does not work, follow the tutorial here.

For Mac and Linux users:

Open a terminal window, and navigate into that directory. For example:

$ cd ~/Desktop/pyrosim

Run build.sh:

$ sh build.sh

This takes three to five minutes. The output should look like this:

Unpacking ode-0.12.tar.bz2...done
Building ode-0.12...done
Building simulator...done

If you are installing from Linux and you do not get the third `done' confirmation, install these additional packages

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential
$ sudo apt-get install freeglut3-dev

then re-install Pyrosim:

$ sh build.sh

Once you get all three `done' confirmations, test the package by running

$ python Demo_00_Empty_Sim.py

This should bring up an OpenGL window displaying an empty, virtual world. The window will close on its own after a few seconds.

Next steps.