Workshop: Sequence and Motion Planning for Robotic Assembly with Choreo and COMPAS framework

Materials for the Sequence and Motion Planning for Robotic Spatial Assembly workshop using COMPAS framework and Choreo as the planning engine.

During this workshop, we will ...

Requirements

Operating System: Windows 10 Pro

Rhinoceros 3D 6.0: Focus on Rhino 6.0 only. See here if you use Rhino 5.0
Anaconda Python Distribution: 2.7 or 3.x

Git: official command-line client or visual GUI (e.g. Github Desktop or SourceTree)

^{(1): Windows 10 Home does not support running Docker.}

Rhino 5.0

The focus of the workshop will be on Rhino 6.0 only. While most things will work on Rhino 5.0, it is not recommended as there are several manual steps required to get the software to run.

However, if you do use Rhino 5.0, make sure to install the following:

Getting started

We will install all the required COMPAS packages using Anaconda. Anaconda uses environments to create isolated spaces for projects' depedencies, it is recommendable that you do all the exercises in a newly created environment.

First, clone this repository.

Start your Anaconda Prompt, go to the destination folder where you wish to place all the workshop material and run:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/yijiangh/compas_fab_choreo_workshop.git

If you forget the `--recursive`

Run the following to update submodules:

git submodule update --init --recursive

Now, we can create the environment and install all packages. Start your Anaconda Prompt, go to the repository folder you just cloned, and run:

  conda env create -f workshop.yml -n compas_fab-choreo_workshop
  conda activate compas_fab-choreo_workshop

Not working?

Make sure you really changed into the repository folder. For example, if you cloned the repository into a folder called Code in your home directory, you should type:

On Mac

  cd ~/Code/compas_fab_choreo_workshop

On Windows

  cd %USERPROFILE%\Code\compas_fab_choreo_workshop

If the command fails because you already have an environment with the same name, choose a different one, or remove the old one before creating the new one:

  conda remove -n workshop --all

Great! Now type python in your Anaconda Prompt, and test if the installation went well:

  >>> import compas
  >>> import compas_fab

If that doesn't fail, you're good to go! Exit the python interpreter (either typing exit() or pressing CTRL+Z followed by Enter).

Now let's make all the installed packages available inside Rhino. Still from the Anaconda Prompt, type the following:

  python -m compas_rhino.install -v 6.0 -p compas compas_ghpython compas_rhino compas_fab roslibpy

Congrats! 🎉 You are all set! Open Rhino and try to import compas to verify everything is working fine.

Exercises

Create an assembly planning instance

cd compas_fab.assembly_tests/gh_prototypes/ur_picknplace

Open the ur_picknplace_urdf_export_v0.ghx in Grasshopper.

Run semi-constrained Cartesian planning

Without ros-backend

cd examples
python 0_choreo_picknplace.py

With ros-backend

cd docker/ros-systems/ros-ur5
docker-compose up -d
# after the docker containers are running
cd ../../../examples
# make sure you activate the conda env 'workshop' already
python 0_choreo_picknplace.py -ros

Troubleshooting

Sometimes things don't go as expected. Here are some of answers to the most common issues you might bump into:

Q: conda commands don't work.

Try running them from the Conda Prompt. Depending on how you installed Anaconda, it might not be available by default on the normal Windows command prompt.

Q: When trying to install the framework in Rhino, it fails indicating the lib folder of IronPython does not exist.

Make sure you have opened Rhino 6 and Grasshopper at least once, so that it finishes setting up all its internal folder structure.

Q: error: Microsoft Visual C++ 14.0 is required

Follow the link to install Microsoft Visual C++ 14.0 https://www.scivision.co/python-windows-visual-c++-14-required/