[PlayerStage-Gazebo] New features in Gazebo 0.5.0

[ahoward <ah...@po...>]

Hi folks (again):

Just a quick word on some features to expect in the next release of
Gazebo (most of these are in CVS).

1. Save world file.  You can now save the world file with the current pose
of all the models.

2, Plugin models.  You can now compile models as shared objects, and have
the simulator load them at run time.  This is great for creating your own
custom robots/sensors/etc that dont really belong in the main source tree.
Builds are also *much* quicker this way.

3. Alternative language bindings for libgazebo.  I have created Python
bindings for libgazebo using SWIG; when used in conjunction with the
TruthWidget, this is a great way to "animate" your simulation (e.g., move
stuff around programatically).  I'm open to suggestions (volunteers only!)
on other language bindings.

4. As a possible extension to (3), I am considering adding a "script"
tag to models.  This tag would specify a program to be executed to animate
the model.  Basically, this is just a convenience wrapper over (3): i.e.,
get the simulator to start your scripts rather than opening a new shell
and starting them yourself.

Any thoughts on the above are welcome.  Now is also a good time to suggest
any other features you think might be useful.

	A.



Andrew Howard                           email: ah...@po...
Department of Computer Science          http:  www-robotics.usc.edu/~ahoward
University of Southern California       phone: 1 (213) 740 6416
Los Angeles, CA, U.S.A. 90089-0781      fax:   1 (213) 821 5696
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