rosbridge.org modified for protocol v2

[Chad Jenkins]

Hi rosbridge-users,

Jon Mace has done great work to get rosbridge to a releasable state.  In addition to the previous message that I forwarded, he also has updated rosbridge.org with information for using Version 2 of the rosbridge protocol.  The official ROS release of the rosbridge v2 stack will be coming soon.

Any comments, suggestions, or questions are welcomed and encouraged.

-Chad 

[benoit....@gmail.com]

Hi guys.
I am a little bit sad to discovered this new protocol version. Version 1 worked fine for me.
By the way i want to make things in the right way.
Apparently rosbridge server version2 is not compatible with rosbridge V1 messages.
Some question:
- Is there a way to detect which rosbridge version protocol is set on the server from the client. If it's possible, client could adapt itself according the protocol version
- Secondly i saw in your rosbridge v2.0 protocol specification that your message format changed.
If I want to call a service, I think I have to send a message like this:
connection.send(JSON.stringify({'op': 'call_service', 'service': '/rosjs/topics'}))
but how should I handle the response?

Thank you in advance,
Benoit

[Chad Jenkins]

Hi Benoit,

First, thanks for using rosbridge!  We really appreciate hearing from users.

rosbridge v1 will continue to work with current distributions of ROS.  It can also continue for future distributions and other middleware if someone is willing to serve as its maintainer.  Trevor Jay deserves a lot of credit as the author and maintainer of rosbridge v1, and we would welcome someone who can step in his role. 

I can understand your sense of sadness.  I would say that rosbridge v1 was a research-level implementation to see if we could provide an simpler, web-accessible, and more general interface to ROS through network messages.  rosbridge v1 was aimed towards researchers with the hope that many others would find it useful.  As such, it has been very useful but has a number of issues in terms of the protocol and server implementation... "Problem Problem Problem..."

With rosbridge v2, the objective has been to create an implementation closer to production quality.  The rosbridge v2 protocol has a specification, a well-tested server implementation, and much more descriptive error and status messages.  If you are using JavaScript, the rosbridge_suite stack also has js files that mimic the rosbridge v1 interface for rosbridge v2 messages. 

Overall, rosbridge is a work in progress that will hopefully lead to a general applications-layer protocol for robotics.  We hope that you will find rosbridge useful as it evolves.

-Chad

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[BenoitL]

Hi,
In fact i am developing for several months an API in javascript based on rosbridge/rosjs but on a more "declarative usage".
Maybe you could take a look on it (http://ros.org/wiki/websocket_gui) and perhaps include it in rosjs.
Keep me in touch ;)
Benoit

On Wednesday, July 25, 2012 10:30:15 PM UTC+2, Chad Jenkins wrote:

[Chad Jenkins]

Hi Benoit,

Thanks for sending this pointer along.  websocket_gui looks pretty useful.  I was able to run your demo, which is pretty nice:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14050575/tmp/Screenshot-Turtle%20Example%20-%20Google%20Chrome.png

However, it took a little more than following the Electric instructions.  I had to clone flot separately and copy OpenLayers.js from its repository to a place where the Makefile would be happy.  There maybe a more elegant way to do this as I am not the most experienced github user.

---

rosjs is another larger issue.  There are many different "ros.js"es that are popping up.  The ros.js from brown-ros-pkg still tends to be the default for rosbridge v1.  For v2, the rosbridge_suite stack has a several ros.js files for directly using rosbridge v2 or emulating the behavior of v1.  Further, Brandon Alexander has an AMD-compatible [*] rosjs (https://github.com/RobotWebTools/rosjs) under the RobotWebTools organization.  This will get out of control quickly.

To help bring a little more structure, we will be moving to RobotWebTools as the main portal for the various versions of rosbridge, rosjs, and related packages.  This portal will most likely emulate the wiki structure of ros.org such that related projects can easily index into the larger body of applications tools.  More details will be coming soon. 

That said, rosbridge will remain a general robotics protocol and not just a web interface for ROS.

-Chad

[*] Asynchronous Module Definition (AMD)

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[BenoitL]

Thank you for the feedback.
What was the pb with flot and openlayer ? I will try to do it more nicely
Concerning rosjs, how can I build my application on a proper way with all this version?

[Chad Jenkins]

Hi Benoit,

Apologies for my delayed response.  It is the time for robotics paper deadlines.

The issue with flot was that git did not recurse into the flot repository.  I am not sure how to get git to do this.

Openlayers looked to be a null pointer in the repository.

-Chad

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rosbridge-users/-/CglG0F_ug8sJ.

[BenoitL]

Hi, ICRA am i right ^^
By the I update the git. The errorwas from openlayers. Now it should works. Some other exampes will be added soon in my tutorial.
For now, i will stay on version 1 for rosbridge and wait some time before up to the next version.
By the way, i'm wondering if you know some company/laboratory in robotics in France or switzerland which uses rosbridge ?
Cheers,
Benoit

[Chad Jenkins]

Actually, mostly HRI this year, but usually it is ICRA.

There are still many rosbridge v1 users.  So, it will likely be around for some time.

Other than emails the we answer, we have not tracked usage and downloads for rosbridge.  I suspect there is usage in France and Switzerland, but I am not sure.

-Chad

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rosbridge-users/-/rt09VjR0Yo0J.