[simspark-devel] [announce] SimSpark Windows Port

[Markus R. <rol...@un...>]

Hi all,

In the last couple of days I ported my SimSpark GUI 'rsgedit' to Windows 
and extended it to support the current humanoid soccer robot. This GUI 
allows you to start simulations and control agent processes with a 
simple mouse click. Screenshot at [7]

Rsgedit is packaged as a standard windows setup.exe installer. It is far 
from bug free but is already a useful tool and development aid ;)

Rsgedit comes prepackaged with a simple simulation that shows the arena 
known from simspark. Further a demo agent is contained that spawns the 
soccerbot and starts waving it's arm (i.e. a 'hello world behavior' ;)

The source code for the windows port of simspark is available in the 
WIN32 branch of the simspark CVS.

In order to help you develop your custom soccerbot behavior easily 
please find a minimal socceragent project for the MS Visual Studio 
compiler at [1].

Below you'll find a small guide how to setup and use rsgedit.

--8<----8<----8<--

Installation
------------

1. Rsgedit comes as prepackaged setup.exe, currently available at [2]. 
Please download this binary and start it. The setup process should be 
self explanatory.

2. The simulator depends on the latest Microsoft C-runtime. Microsoft 
distributes this runtime as a separate setup, called vcredist_x86.exe. 
It is available at [3]. For your convenience I also copied it to [4].

Using RsgEdit
---------------

1. Start rsgedit (either via it's desktop icon or the start menu). You 
should see a small splash screen and then the main application window. 
On the left half are some diagnostic windows. They show the scenegraph 
in the lower half and properties of current node in the top half. On the 
right half of the screen is the embedded OpenGL window that shows the 
simulation.

2. Open a simulation- choose File|Open in the menu or use the folder 
icon. Rsgedit depends on small ruby startup scripts to setup a 
simulation. Simple demos are 'boxpheres.rb' and 'jointtest.rb'.

3. Runnig a simulation. The simulation is in either one of two states 
'paused' or 'running'. Immediately after opening a simulation it is 
paused. You can start the simulation by choosing 'simulation|start' from 
the menu or clicking on the start icon ( |> )  You can later pause a 
simulation by choosing 'simulation|pause' from the menu or clicking the 
pause icon ( || ).

4. Resetting a simulation. If the simulation is currently paused it is 
possible to reset it, i.e. put it back to the state it was immediately 
after opening the simulation.

Starting the soccerbot
----------------------

1. Open the 'agent.rb' simulation. You should see the default arena- a 
simple boxed field.

2. Start the simulation.

3. Start the soccer agent. Choose 'File|Start Agent' from the menu or 
press the agent icon (you'll know when you see it ;) Choose 
'agentspark.exe'.

4. The .exe file is immediately started. The output of the agent is 
shown in a separate window. You should now see the humanoid appearing on 
the field, waving one arm.

5. Stopping/Restarting the agent. You can stop, i.e. kill the agent 
process by pressing the stop icon in the agent log window. You can 
restart the agent with the play icon in the agent window.

Writing your own agent
----------------------

In order to help you develop your own agent you'll find the source code 
of the demo agent at [1]. This source code is identically to the source 
in the CVS except that it is self contained, i.e. does not depend on the 
simspark libraries. The source is meant to be built with the latest 
Visual C++ from Microsoft (Version 2005).

You can get a free Version of this compiler (the vc 2005 express 
edition) from Microsoft [5].

( It would be nice if someone polishes this small howto guide and puts 
it into the Simspark Wiki [6] )

cheers,
Markus

[1] http://www.uni-koblenz.de/~rollmark/agentspark.zip

[2] http://www.uni-koblenz.de/~rollmark/setup.exe

[3] 
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=32BC1BEE-A3F9-4C13-9C99-220B62A191EE&displaylang=de

[4] http://www.uni-koblenz.de/~rollmark/vcredist_x86.exe

[5] 
http://www.microsoft.com/germany/msdn/vstudio/products/express/visualc/default.mspx

[6]
http://simspark.sourceforge.net/wiki/

[7]
http://www.uni-koblenz.de/~rollmark/rsgedit.jpeg