The ed_gui_server already runs out-of-the-box when you've started ED.
Requirements:
You will also need the following system dependencies (ROS Indigo, Ubuntu 14.04):
sudo apt-get install ros-indigo-urdf
Check out the following packages in your workspace:
cd <your_catkin_workspace>/src
git clone https://github.com/tue-robotics/ed_gui_server.git
And compile
cd <your_catkin_workspace>:
catkin_make
When you've started ED you should be able to listen to
/ed/gui/entities
Notice that 'rostopic pub /ed/gui/entities' will give you a constant stream of info of all entities, including their id. To get the image of a certain entity, use the service
/ed/gui/get_entity_info
The service is defined here:
roscd ed_gui_server
vim srv/GetEntityInfo.srv
To store entity info (measurements needed for training perception) on the computer which runs ED, you'll have to use the service:
/ed/gui/interact
The service is defnied here:
roscd ed_gui_server
vim srv/Interact.srv
And put the following in the command_yaml field: {action: store, id: <PUT-ENTITY-ID-HERE>, type: <PUT-ENTITY-TYPE-HERE>}
There are also services to query for entities in a specific region. For example, the following service call returns the info of entities (their id and pose) in the 20 x 20 x 20 m area around (0, 0, 0):
rosservice call /ed/gui/query_entities "{ area_min: {x: -10, y: -10, z: -10}, area_max: {x: 10, y: 10, z: 10} }"
Once you've received the entity ids, these can be used to query for their meshes. For example, to get the mesh of entitiy 'floor':
rosservice call /ed/gui/query_meshes '{ entity_ids: [ "floor" ] }'
Per entity, You'll receive a list of vertices and a list of triangles referring to the vertices. For more info on the exact format, please see the Mesh.msg file in the /msg folder.
rosrun ed_gui_server ed_rviz_publisher
Now start RViz, and listen to the Marker topic '/ed/rviz'. You should see two blocks appearing: the blocks you specified in the configuration file. Or use the rviz_plugin from the ed_rviz_plugins package to visualize.
Located in the https://github.com/tue-robotics/ed_rviz_plugins.git package:
Start rviz and add the ed_rviz_plugins/WorldModel display. Configure the service for querying the meshes and the ED entities topic, e.g. /ed/gui/entities and /ed/gui/query_meshes
All ED tutorials can be found in the ed_tutorials package: https://github.com/tue-robotics/ed_tutorials