lp:robot3d

Robot3D is a 3D robot simulator built on top of the open-source game engine Delta3D. The Robot3D simulator is created within the European Replicator and Symbrion projects. The prime developer is Lutz Winkler from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. The simulator makes use of OpenSceneGraph, ODE, OpenGL, OpenAL, CEGUI, and YARP. The simulator can run multiple robots in parallel and is developed for modular robots. Modular robots are swarm robots with the additional ability that they can dock together and form robot organisms.

This is the main branch of the Robot3D project. Feel free to work on it. You have to be warned though in advance. Robot3D is meant to communicate with robot software via YARP. The robot software will hence not be part of the simulator itself. Moreover, the /usr/lib/robot3d/components directory is searched for Robot3D components and they are dynamically loaded. So, even if you want for example coloured traces on the ground behind your robots, this can be added in the form of such a dynamically loadable plugin. The project uses the "stable trunk" branching strategy. Development takes place in individual branches, and when matured are merged into the trunk.

In the case you actually want to contribute to the simulator core, observe the following, if you are not familiar with Bazaar or Launchpad yet:

After installation of bzr, by "sudo aptitude install bzr" tell Bazaar your name and email address:
    bzr whoami "Your Name <name-removethisobfuscation-@domain.com>"

Go to the directory where you want to work on the simulator, e.g.:
    cd ~/myworkspace

Initialise a local repository:
    bzr init-repo robot3d
    cd robot3d

Create your own branch locally, and yes this will become a nested directory robot3d/robo3d_yourname on purpose:
    bzr branch lp:robot3d robot3d_yourname
    cd robot3d_yourname

Work, work, work and all the time:
    bzr commit -m "OMG. What did I do here?"

Do this often, it commits to your local repository so no harm done. Also use "bzr add" to add files. Use "bzr uncommit" to undo a commit.

Then if you are lucky enough to be part of the Robot3D development team, you can merge it to the trunk. First go back to the parent directory robot3d, and then merge from the local branch:
    bzr checkout lp:robot3d trunk # This only need to be done once of course, but do not forget bzr update each time
    cd trunk
    bzr update
    bzr merge ../robot3d_yourname
    bzr commit -m "All the perfect changes performed by ...."
It is also possible to publish your local branch somewhere and convince people to use yours.

You can always check changes, including merges by:
    bzr log -n0

Of course, merging the other way around works just as well:
    cd ../robot3d_yourname
    bzr merge ../trunk

The debian files are in the branch lp:~robot3d-team/robot3d/robot3d-ubuntu-packaging. Be aware that the trunk is built daily automatically on the build farm at Launchpad! So, first use pbuilder or cowbuilder to check if it actually builds locally.

Good luck!