This is a simple ROS publisher for MarkerArray in Rviz. The current version can publish multiple spherical markers.

• radius: the radius of each sphere
• num_obstacles: the number of spheres that you are going to visualise
• range_obstacles: the Cartesian range where the spheres will be uniform-randomly appeared. It should be such that (x_min, x_max, y_min, y_max, z_min, z_max)

• mode:
  • Manual mode allows to modify the obstacles' positions by pressing w, x, a, d, q, z.
  • RandomMove makes the obstacles slightly move randomly.
  • TrajectoryTest mode is for the test in Sec V-B (a.k.a. crossbar test).

rosrun rviz_marker_publisher gen_obstacles.py

The result MarkerArray will be published via visualization_marker_array topic.

• mode == 1: "8"-shaped periodic moving. (Go to Step 2-1)
• mode == 2: Random movement (Go to Step 2-2) -- NOTE: This includes the function of gen_obstacles.py, thus it is self-contained, i.e. you do not need to run gen_obstacles.py separately. This mode is for automatically collecting data for the paper.
• mode == 3 : Trajectory test (Go to Step 2-3)

• xyzrpy: (m/s) XYZ velocity // (rad) Amplitudes of Roll Pitch Yaw in End Effector Frame
• moving_period: Repeatative moving period (sec)

• right_range: the range where each random target pose will be generated
• max_del_x: a sense of velocity of the movement
• moving_period_mode_two: Repeatative moving period (sec)

• xyzrpy_mode3: (m/s) XYZ velocity // (rad) Amplitudes of Roll Pitch Yaw in End Effector Frame
• moving_period_mode3: Repeatative moving period (sec)

rosrun rviz_marker_publisher virtual_teleoperator.py

See the video (https://youtu.be/Ki-miu0sTp4), which uses RandomMove for gen_obstacles.py and mode = 2 for virtual_teleoprator.py

• keywords_of_object_to_encapsulate: a list of the keyword strings (e.g. If you put "object" and any gazebo model object whose name includes this keyword will be encapsulated)
• capsules_sizes: a list of the capsule sizes for each keyword. NOTE: Currently, only ellipsoid capsule is available thus the capsule size is supposed to be its diameter for each axis.
• robot_height: the z-axis offset between the IK solver's coordination frame and the Gazebo environment's frame.

rosrun rviz_marker_publisher encapsulation.py