Hello, everyone!
Writing software for robots is hard. Time and again I see robot makers making custom apps for their systems. I dream of writing the Inkscape, the GIMP, the Audacity for robots. Something super easy that runs everything and everybody understands, which I call Robot Overlord 3. Mr. Annin has been kind enough to share with me his CAD files and I've loaded up his arm in my program.
As of v2.103.2 the app has at least 5 arms, a quadruped, a stewart platform, and room for more. It has a serial interface to talk to your device, an editor panel where you can tweak gcode, forward and inverse kinematics, a built-in USB camera interface, and lots of other good stuff. Check out the friendly manual as it grows.
I'm sharing this here with Chris' blessing because many hands make light work. I'm looking for someone that would enjoy using Blender to texture this AR4 and make it look as good as it runs. I'm looking for people that see this as useful and would like to help me make it even better with user experience feedback and ideas. I'm looking for modders that want to add more types of robots and push it to eleven with JavaCV, ODE4J physics, or NNs. I'm looking for youtubers that want to make how-to videos. If any of this strikes a friendly chord in your heart, hmu.
Thank you for reading!
Looks very cool Dan!
I have limited time available, but I'll see if I can texture the arm in Blender. I'll post again here when I finish.
Cheers,
J
Here's the same AR4 I used in the pic above.
Get RO3 v2.103.0 from the Nightly Builds.
Extract the zip and open AR4-3.RO in the app.
FK:
Scene tab, select Scene > AR4 > Limb.
Details tab, turn dials: either click and drag or roll the middle mouse.
IK:
Scene tab, select Scene > AR4 > LimbSolver.
Details tab, click `Lock` to keep this detail tab.
Details tab, drag the "linear vel" to the right. More is faster!
Details tab, click the magnifying glass next to 'target'. Selection in Scene will change. Lock will keep details on LimbSolver.
3D View, click "Move". Drag gizmo. Arm will rubber band to your target location.
More precision?
Scene tab, select MarilnRobotArm.
Detail tab, type Gcode under "output" and hit enter or click "Send". Home position is "G0 X0 Y0 Z0 U0 V0 W0" (all uppercase).
Recoding:
Click Windows > Editor. Remember you can drag to rearrange tabs.
Tell Editor it is working with MarlinRobotArm: either drag MarlinRobotArm into "..." button or click "..." and find MarlinRobotArm.
Tell Editor to record: press Editor "Lock" button.
Tell Marlin to start broadcasting: Click MarlinRobotArm > Details > Report > Start
Move arm any way you like. Once a second FK gcode will be send to the editor.
Stop broadcasting
Turn off Editor Lock.
Click first line of editor text.
Press "Send". Arm will snap to that FK position. If you still have LimbSolver > Linear Vel greater than zero, arm will try to move back to the target position.
I hope that serves as a good intro. LMK what you think!