If you are searching for the superbuild mantained by the Advanced Robotics department at the Italian Institute of Technology, formerly called robotology-superbuild, please check https://github.com/ADVRHumanoids/advr-superbuild.
This is a meta repository (so-called "superbuild") that uses CMake and YCM to automatically download and compile software developed in the robotology GitHub organization, such as the YARP middleware or software used to run the iCub humanoid robot.
CMake is an open-source, cross-platform family of tools designed to build, test and package software. A YCM Superbuild is a CMake project whose only goal is to download and build several other projects. If you are familiar with ROS, it is something similar to catkin or ament workspace, but using pure CMake for portability reasons. You can read more about the superbuild concept in YCM documentation.
| System | Status |
|---|---|
| Linux |  |
- Superbuild structure
- Installation
- Update
- Profile-specific documentation
- Dependencies-specific documentation
- FAQs
- Mantainers
robotology-superbuild will download and build a number of software.
For each project, the repository will be downloaded in the robotology/<package_name> subdirectory
of the superbuild root. The build directory for a given project will be instead the robotology/<package_name> subdirectory
of the superbuild build directory. All the software packages are installed using the install directory of the build as installation prefix.
If there is any non-robotology dependency handled by the superbuild as it is not easily in the system, it will located in the external directory instead of the robotology one.
As a huge number of software projects are developed in the robotology organization,
and a tipical user is only interested in some of them, there are several options to
instruct the superbuild on which packages should be built and which one should not be built.
The profile CMake options specify which subset of the robotology packages will be built by the superbuild.
Note that any dependencies of the included packages that is not available in the system will be downloaded, compiled and installed as well. All these options are named ROBOTOLOGY_ENABLE_<profile> .
| CMake Option | Description | Main packages included | Default Value | Profile-specific documentation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
ROBOTOLOGY_ENABLE_CORE |
The core robotology software packages, necessary for most users. | YARP, ICUB, RTF, ICUBcontrib, icub-models andicub-tests. GazeboYARPPlugins and icub-gazebo if the ROBOTOLOGY_USES_GAZEBO option is enabled. |
ON |
Documentation on Core profile. |
ROBOTOLOGY_ENABLE_DYNAMICS |
The robotology software packages related to balancing, walking and force control. | iDynTree, WB-Toolbox, whole-body-controllers. icub-gazebo-wholebody if the ROBOTOLOGY_USES_GAZEBO option is enabled. |
OFF |
Documentation on Dynamics profile. |
ROBOTOLOGY_ENABLE_IHMC |
The robotology software packages necessary to use YARP with the IHMC Open Robotic Software. | ihmc-ors-yarp |
OFF |
Documentation on IHMC profile. |
If any of the packages required by the selected profiles is already available in the system (i.e. it can be found by the find_package CMake command ), it will be neither downloaded, nor compiled, nor installed. In robotology-superbuild, this check is done by the find_or_build_package YCM command in the main CMakeLists.txt of the superbuild.
By default, the superbuild will use the package already available in the system. If the user wants to ignore those packages and have two different versions of them, then he/she should set the CMake variable USE_SYSTEM_<PACKAGE> to FALSE. For further details, please refer to YCM Superbuild Manual for Developers.
The dependencies CMake options specify if the packages dependending on something installed in the system should be installed or not. All these options are named ROBOTOLOGY_USES_<dependency>.
| CMake Option | Description | Default Value | Dependency-specific documentation |
|---|---|---|---|
ROBOTOLOGY_USES_GAZEBO |
Include software and plugins that depend on the Gazebo simulator. | ON on Linux and macOS, OFF on Windows |
Documentation on Gazebo dependency. |
ROBOTOLOGY_USES_MATLAB |
Include software and plugins that depend on the Matlab. | OFF |
Documentation on MATLAB dependency. |
ROBOTOLOGY_USES_OCTAVE |
Include software and plugins that depend on Octave. | OFF |
Documentation on Octave dependency. |
We provide different instructions on how to install robotology-superbuild, depending on your operating system:
- Linux: use the superbuild with make,
- macOS: use the superbuild with Xcode or GNU make,
- Windows: use the superbuild with Microsoft Visual Studio.
Complete documentation on how to use a YCM-based superbuild is available in the YCM documentation.
On Debian based systems (as Ubuntu) you can install the C++ toolchain, Git, CMake and Eigen (and other dependencies necessary for the software include in robotology-superbuild) using apt-get:
sudo apt-get install libeigen3-dev build-essential cmake cmake-curses-gui coinor-libipopt-dev libboost-system-dev libboost-filesystem-dev libboost-thread-dev libtinyxml-dev libace-dev libgsl0-dev libopencv-dev libode-dev liblua5.1-dev lua5.1 git swig qtbase5-dev qtdeclarative5-dev qtmultimedia5-dev qml-module-qtquick2 qml-module-qtquick-window2 qml-module-qtmultimedia qml-module-qtquick-dialogs qml-module-qtquick-controls qml-module-qt-labs-folderlistmodel qml-module-qt-labs-settings libsdl1.2-dev libxml2-dev
In particular, the version that we require are at least 3.3-beta2 for the Eigen matrix library and at least 3.0 for the CMake build system.
The packages provided in the official distro repositories work out of the box for Ubuntu 16.04 (xenial).
For older distros such as Ubuntu 14.04 (trusty) and Debian 8 (jessie) the default CMake and Eigen are too old, and is necessary to find a way to install them from an alternative
source:
- In Debian 8 (
jessie) it is sufficient to enable thejessie-backportsrepository and install the recent versions of CMake and Eigen provided in it:
sudo apt-get -t jessie-backports install cmake libeigen3-dev
- In Ubuntu 14.04 (
trusty) a recent version of CMake is available in the official repositories in thecmake3package. To install a recent version of Eigen you can use a PPA.
If you enabled any profile or dependency specific CMake option you may need to install additional system dependencies, following the dependency-specific documentation (in particular, the ROBOTOLOGY_USES_GAZEBO option is enabled by default, so you should install Gazebo unless you plan to disable this option):
If you didn't already configured your git, you have to set your name and email to sign your commits:
git config --global user.name FirstName LastName
git config --global user.email [email protected]
Finally it is possible to install robotology software using the YCM superbuild:
git clone https://github.com/robotology/robotology-superbuild.git
cd robotology-superbuild
mkdir build
cd build
ccmake ../
makeYou can configure the ccmake environment if you know you will use some particular set of software (put them in "ON"). See Superbuild CMake options for a list of available options.
Currently the YCM superbuild does not support building a global install target, so all binaries are installed in robotology-superbuild/build/install/bin and all libraries in robotology-superbuild/build/install/lib.
To use this binaries and libraries, you should update the PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variables.
An easy way is to add this lines to the '.bashrc` file in your home directory:
export ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_ROOT=/directory/where/you/downloaded/robotology-superbuild/
export ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX=$ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_ROOT/build/install
# Extend PATH (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_(variable) )
export PATH=$PATH:$ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX/bin
# YARP related env variables (see http://www.yarp.it/yarp_data_dirs.html )
export YARP_DATA_DIRS=$YARP_DATA_DIRS:$ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX/share/yarp:$ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX/share/iCub:$ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX/share/ICUBcontrib:$ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_ROOT/robotology/icub-tests/suits
# Extend CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH (see https://cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.8/variable/CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH.html )
export CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=$CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH:$ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX
# Extend LD_LIBRARY_PATH (see http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Program-Library-HOWTO/shared-libraries.html#AEN80)
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:$ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX/libSoftware installed by the following profile or dependencies CMake options require specific enviromental variables to be set, as documented in options-specific documentation:
As a convenient feature the superbuild provides an automatically generated setup.sh sh script that will set
all the necessary enviromental variables:
source $ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX/share/robotology-superbuild/setup.sh
To use the updated .bashrc in your terminal you should run the following command:
user@host:~$ source ~/.bashrcIf may also be necessary to updates the cache of the dynamic linker:
user@host:~$ sudo ldconfigTo install Eigen and CMake, it is possible to use Homebrew:
brew install ace eigen cmake boost tinyxml swig qt5 gsl pkg-config jpeg sqlite readline tinyxml dartsim/dart/ipopt
Since Qt5 is not symlinked in /usr/local by default in the homebrew formula, Qt5_DIR needs to be properly set to make sure that CMake-based projects are able to find Qt5.
export Qt5_DIR=/usr/local/opt/qt5/lib/cmake/Qt5
If you want to enable a profile or a dependency specific CMake option, you may need to install additional system dependencies following the dependency-specific documentation (in particular, the ROBOTOLOGY_USES_GAZEBO option is enabled by default, so you should install Gazebo unless you plan to disable this option):
If you didn't already configured your git, you have to set your name and email to sign your commits:
git config --global user.name FirstName LastName
git config --global user.email [email protected]
Finally it is possible to install robotology software using the superbuild:
git clone https://github.com/robotology/robotology-superbuild.git
cd robotology-superbuild
mkdir build
cd buildTo use GNU Makefile generators:
cmake ../
makeTo use Xcode project generators
cmake ../ -G Xcode
xcodebuild -configuration ReleaseCurrently the YCM superbuild does not support building a global install target, so all binaries are installed in robotology-superbuild/build/install/bin and all libraries in robotology-superbuild/build/install/lib.
To use this binaries you should update the PATH environment variables and append $ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX/lib to your DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH.
An easy way is to add these lines to the .bashrc or .bash_profile file in your home directory:
export ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_ROOT=/directory/where/you/downloaded/robotology-superbuild/
export ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX=$ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_ROOT/build/install
# Extend PATH (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_(variable) )
export PATH=$PATH:$ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX/bin
# YARP related env variables (see http://www.yarp.it/yarp_data_dirs.html )
export YARP_DATA_DIRS=$YARP_DATA_DIRS:$ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX/share/yarp:$ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX/share/iCub:$ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX/share/ICUBcontrib:$ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_ROOT/robotology/icub-tests/suits
# Extend CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH (see https://cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.8/variable/CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH.html )
export CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=$CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH:$ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX
# Extend DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH (see https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/DeveloperTools/Conceptual/DynamicLibraries/100-Articles/UsingDynamicLibraries.html )
export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH:$ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX/libSoftware installed by the following profile or dependencies CMake options require specific enviromental variables to be set, as documented in options-specific documentation:
As a convenient feature the superbuild provides an automatically generated setup.sh sh script that will set
all the necessary enviromental variables:
source $ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX/share/robotology-superbuild/setup.sh
To use the updated .bashrc in your terminal you should run the following command:
user@host:~$ source ~/.bashrcor for the .bash_profile file
user@host:~$ source ~/.bash_profileor simply open a new terminal.
While the robotology software is tested to be fully compatible with Windows, the Gazebo simulator that is widely used for simulation with robotology software does not support Windows.
For this reason if you plan to do use the robotology software with the Gazebo simulator, for the time being it is easier for you to use Linux or macOS.
As Windows does not have a widely used system package manager such as the one that are available on Linux or macOS, installing the system dependencies is slightly more compliated. However, we try to document every step necessary for the installation, but you find something that you don't understand in the documentation, please open an issue.
Most of the robotology software is developed using the C/C++ language. For this reason, you should have Visual Studio, the official Microsoft compiler for Windows, installed on your computer to compile the software in the superbuild. Visual Studio 2015 and Visual Studio 2017 are both supported by the superbuild. Pay attention to enable the C++ support when first installing the Visual Studio compiler, as by default C++ support is not installed.
Most of the robotology software is hosted on Git repositories, so you will need Git to download them. You can download the Git installer at http://msysgit.github.io/ .
To install CMake you can use the official installer available at http://www.cmake.org/cmake/resources/software.html . It is recommended to install the latest version of CMake.
While this tool is not strictly required, it is convenient to install the Rapid Environment Editor to easily modify the value of the environment variables in Windows.
The software in the superbuild depends on several libraries such as Eigen and Qt that we assume are already available in your machine, as it would be too time intensive to build those libraries in the superbuild itself. There are two ways to install these libraries in your machine, either using the installer of YARP and iCub dependencies (the recommended way) or using vcpkg (not recommended, as it can takes several hours).
The robotology project is currently providing binary installers for YARP and iCub libraries, and one additional installer for additional dependencies. As the idea of the superbuild is to easily permit compilation from source of YARP, iCub and all related software,
we use these installers only to install the dependencies of these libraries, not to install YARP and iCub themselfs.
In particular you have to run the binary installer of YARP
( http://www.yarp.it/download.html#download_windows ) to install ACE, Eigen3 and Qt5, the binary installer of ICUB software ( http://wiki.icub.org/wiki/Windows:_installation_from_sources#Getting_iCub.27s_dependenceis ) to install Ipopt, OpenCV, SDL, Qt5 and GLUT and the robotology-additional-dependencies
installer ( https://github.com/robotology-playground/robotology-additional-dependencies ) to install LibXML2 .
Important: make sure that you are installing the 64-bit installers, if you want to compile the robotology-superbuild using the the 64-bit compiler!
These installers will set automatically all the enviroment variables necessary to make sure that these libraries are found by CMake, and they will modify the PATH enviroment variable to make sure that the libraries can be used when launching the programs that use them.
Note: if you already installed the YARP and iCub dependencies installers, you don't need to install vcpkg at all! Note: using vcpkg is not trivial, and is not currently recommended for new users. Furthermore, some dependencies such as ipopt and sdl1 are not available in vcpkg. The vcpkg ports that need to be installed for providing all the necessary dependencies to the superbuild are:
./vcpkg install --triplet x64-windows ace gsl eigen3 opencv freeglut ode sdl2 qt5 libxml2
Use the x86-windows triplet only if you want to compile the superbuild using the 32-bit compiler.
The default way to use the libraries provided by vcpkg in CMake is to use the vcpkg CMake toolchain.
However, using a CMake toolchain is not currently supported by the superbuild, as the toolchain should be manually passed
when configuring each CMake-based subproject of the superbuild.
For this reason, to use the libraries installed by the superbuild, it is necessary to use the CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH, CMAKE_PROGRAM_PATH and PATH environment variables. In particular, if your vcpkg is installed in ${VCPKG_ROOT},
you need to add ${VCPKG_ROOT}/installed/x64-windows and ${VCPKG_ROOT}/installed/x64-windows/debug to CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH,
${VCPKG_ROOT}/installed/x64-windows/tools to CMAKE_PROGRAM_PATH and ${VCPKG_ROOT}/installed/x64-windows/bin and ${VCPKG_ROOT}/installed/x64-windows/debug/bin to PATH.
If you didn't already configured your git, you have to set your name and email to sign your commits:
git config --global user.name FirstName LastName
git config --global user.email [email protected]
After that you can clone the superbuild repository as any other git repository, i.e. if you use terminal you can write:
git clone https://github.com/robotology/robotology-superbuild
or you can use your preferred Git GUI.
Once you cloned the repository, you can generate the Visual Studio solution using the CMake GUI. See the nicely written CGold documentation if you do not know how to generate a Visual Studio solution from a CMake project.
You can then open the generated solution with Visual Studio and build the target all.
Visual Studio will then download, build and install in a local directory all the robotology software and its dependencies.
If you prefer to work from the command line, you can also compile the all target using the following command (if you are in the robotology-superbuild/build directory, and the directory of the cmake.exe exectuable is in the PATH :
cmake --build . --config Release
Currently the YCM superbuild does not support building a global install target, so all binaries are installed in robotology-superbuild/build/install/bin and all libraries in robotology-superbuild/build/install/lib.
To use this binaries and libraries, you should update the necessary environment variables.
Set the environment variable ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_ROOT so that it points to the directory where you cloned the robotology-superbuild repository, and ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIXto the directory where you have installed the robotology-superbuild (ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX = $ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX/build/install)
Append $ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX/bin to your PATH.
Append $ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX/share/yarp, $ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX/share/iCub, $ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX/share/ICUBcontrib and $ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_ROOT/robotology/icub-tests/suits to your YARP_DATA_DIRS environment variable.
Software installed by the following profile or dependencies CMake options require specific enviromental variables to be set, as documented in options-specific documentation:
For updating the robotology-superbuild repository it is possible to just fetch the last changes using the usual
git command:
git pull
However, for running the equivalent of git pull on all the repositories managed by
the robotology-superbuild, you have to run in your build system the appropriate target.
To do this, make sure to be in the build directory of the robotology-superbuild and run:
make update-all
make
using make on Linux or macOS or
cmake --build . --target UPDATE_ALL
cmake --build .
using Visual Studio on Windows or
cmake --build . --target ALL_UPDATE
cmake --build .
using Xcode on macOS.
Note that the update will try to update all the software in the robotology-superbuild, and it will complain if the repository is not in the expected branch.
For this reason, if you are activly developing on a repository managed by the robotology-superbuild, remember to switch the YCM_EP_DEVEL_MODE_<package_name>
option to TRUE. This option will ensure that the superbuild will not try to automatically update the <package_name> repository. See https://robotology.github.io/ycm/gh-pages/master/manual/ycm-superbuild.7.html#developer-mode
for more details on this options.
YARP, ICUB and several other robotology software uses a devel branch for testing experimental features before a full release,
when this changes are merged in their master branch. For more information on this workflow, see yarp's CONTRIBUTING.md file.
For ensuring stability to the end-users, the robotology-superbuild is always tested against the master branches, as this are the recomended branches for users.
However if you work at IIT@Genoa, it may be possible that you want to interface
your robot (running the devel branch of yarp and icub-main) with the software on your PC compiled with the robotology-superbuild.
This is general can be done using the master branch of yarp, but sometimes there are changes in devel that can introduce incompatibilities
between yarp master and devel, see for example robotology/yarp#1010 (comment) ). This incompatibilities are documented in the YARP changelog.
If you want to use a given repository in the robotology-superbuild in the devel branch, you have to:
- set the
YCM_EP_DEVEL_MODE_<package_name>toTRUE, such that the superbuild will not try to manage the updates of this repository - manually switch the source repository to the devel branch .
To switch back, just manually switch the branches back to master and set YCM_EP_DEVEL_MODE_<package_name> variable to FALSE.
This profile is enabled by the ROBOTOLOGY_ENABLE_CORE CMake option.
The steps necessary to install the system dependencies of the Core profile are provided in operating system-specific installation documentation.
The configuration necessary to use the software installed in the Core profile is provided in operating system-specific installation documentation.
Follow the steps in http://wiki.icub.org/wiki/Check_your_installation to verify if your installation was successful.
This profile is enabled by the ROBOTOLOGY_ENABLE_DYNAMICS CMake option.
The steps necessary to install the system dependencies of the Dynamics profile are provided in operating system-specific installation documentation, and no additional system dependency is required.
$ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX/share/codyco must be appended to the YARP_DATA_DIRS enviromental variable.
If you are using Linux or macOS, the $ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX/share/robotology-superbuild/setup.sh script will append the necessary path to YARP_DATA_DIRS.
This profile is enabled by the ROBOTOLOGY_ENABLE_IHMC CMake option.
The software installed by this profile requires the Asio library.
Install asio and the necessary development files using the following command:
sudo apt-get install libasio-dev
Install asio using the following command:
brew install asio
The Asio library is an header-only C++ library, so you can just download it from http://think-async.com/Asio/Download
and extract it in a directory. You can set the enviromental variable Asio_ROOT to point to the directory that contains the asio README file
so that our FindAsio CMake module is able to find the library.
See the ihmc-ors-yarp documentation if you need to regenerate the idl messages.
To check that the device was correctly found by YARP, if you run the command yarpdev --list in its output you should find a line similar to:
[INFO]Device "bridge_ihmc_ors", available on request (found in <install_prefix>/lib/yarp/bridge_ihmc_ors.so library).
Support for this dependency is enabled by the ROBOTOLOGY_USES_GAZEBO CMake option.
Warning: at the moment the Gazebo simulator does not support Windows, so this option is only supported on Linux and macOS.
Install Gazebo following the instructions available at http://gazebosim.org/tutorials?cat=install .
Make sure to install also the development files, i.e. libgazebo*-dev on Debian/Ubuntu.
Once the superbuild with ROBOTOLOGY_USES_GAZEBO enabled has been compiled, it is necessary to append a few superbuild-specific path to the Gazebo enviromental variables:
# Gazebo related env variables (see http://gazebosim.org/tutorials?tut=components#EnvironmentVariables )
# This is /usr/local/share/gazebo/setup.sh if Gazebo was installed in macOS using homebrew
source /usr/share/gazebo/setup.sh
export GAZEBO_PLUGIN_PATH=${GAZEBO_PLUGIN_PATH}:${ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX}/lib
export GAZEBO_MODEL_PATH=${GAZEBO_MODEL_PATH}:${ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX}/share/gazebo/models:${ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX}/share/iCub/robots:${ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX}/share
export GAZEBO_RESOURCE_PATH=${GAZEBO_RESOURCE_PATH}:${ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX}/share/gazebo/worlds
The $ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX/share/robotology-superbuild/setup.sh script will append the necessary path to the Gazebo enviromental variables.
Follow the steps in https://github.com/robotology/icub-gazebo#usage and/or https://github.com/robotology/icub-models#use-the-models-with-gazebo to check if the Gazebo-based iCub simulation works fine.
Support for this dependency is enabled by the ROBOTOLOGY_USES_MATLAB CMake option.
Warning: differently from other optional dependencies, MATLAB is a commercial product that requires a license to be used.
If MATLAB is not installed on your computer, install it following the instruction in https://mathworks.com/help/install/ .
Once you installed it, make sure that the directory containing the matlab executable is present in the PATH of your system,
as CMake's FindMatlab module relies on this to find MATLAB.
Note: tipically we assume that a user that selects the ROBOTOLOGY_USES_MATLAB also has Simulink installed in his computer.
If this is not the case, you can enable the advanced CMake option ROBOTOLOGY_NOT_USE_SIMULINK to compile all the subprojects that depend on MATLAB, but disable the subprojecs that depend on Simulink (i.e. the
WB-Toolbox ) if you have enabled the ROBOTOLOGY_ENABLE_DYNAMICS CMake options.
If MATLAB is installed on your computer, the robotology-superbuild can install some projects that depend on MATLAB, in particular:
- the MATLAB bindings of the iDynTree library,
- the native MATLAB bindings of YARP, contained in the yarp-matlab-bindings repository,
- the MATLAB bindings of qpOASES, contained in the robotology-dependencies/qpOASES fork,
- The WB-Toolbox Simulink toolbox,
- The whole-body-controllers Simulink-based balancing controllers.
To use this software, you can simply enable its compilation using the ROBOTOLOGY_USES_MATLAB CMake option.
Once this software has been compiled by the superbuild, you just need to add some directories of the robotology-superbuild install (typically $ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_ROOT/build/install) to the MATLAB path.
In particular you need to add to the MATLAB path the $ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX/mex directory and all the subdirectories $ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX/share/WBToolbox.
As an example, you could add this line to your MATLAB script that uses the robotology-superbuild matlab software:
addpath([getenv('ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX') '/mex'])
addpath([getenv('ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_INSTALL_PREFIX') '/share/WBToolbox'])
Anyway we strongly suggest that you add this directories to the MATLAB path in robust way,
for example by modifying the startup.m or the MATLABPATH enviromental variable as described in official MATLAB documentation.
Another way is to run (only once) the script startup_robotology_superbuild.m in the $ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_ROOT/build folder. This should be enough to permanently add the required paths for all the toolbox that use MATLAB.
For more info on configuring MATLAB software with the robotology-superbuild, please check the WB-Toolbox README.
Support for this dependency is enabled by the ROBOTOLOGY_USES_OCTAVE CMake option.
Install octave and the necessary development files using the following command:
sudo apt-get install liboctave-dev
Install octave using the following command:
brew install octave
The ROBOTOLOGY_USES_OCTAVE option has never been tested on Windows.
Add the $ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_ROOT/build/install/octave directory to your Octave path.
Support for this dependency is enabled by the ROBOTOLOGY_USES_PYTHON CMake option.
Add the $ROBOTOLOGY_SUPERBUILD_ROOT/build/install/lib/python2.7/dist-packages to your PYTHONPATH. This is done automatically on Linux and macOS if you source the provided setup.sh script.
The folder mentioned in the configuration section should contain *.py files which correspond to the generated python bindings. Open a python interpreter and try to import modules.
See also YCM documentation for YCM's FAQs.
The CoDyCo European project that funded the development and the mantainance of the codyco-superbuild ended in 2017 .
The robotology-superbuild is the successor of the codyco-superbuild, but it is not limited to software developed in the
CoDyCo project, but more in general software developed in the robotology GitHub organization.
Technically speaking, there are a few differences:
- Projects in the
codyco-superbuildwere saved in the external, libraries or main directories subdirectories of the source and of the build directories. For the sake of simplicity, therobotology-superbuildjust save robotology projects in the robotology directory and all external projects in the external directory. - Support for software that depends on Gazebo (gazebo-yarp-plugins, icub-gazebo, ...) is enabled by default in Linux and macOS .
- In the
robotology-superbuildthe compilation for dynamics-related software (iDynTree, balancing and walking controllers) needs to be explicity enabled using theROBOTOLOGY_ENABLE_DYNAMICSthat isOFFby default.
| Profile | Mantainer |
|---|---|
| Core | Silvio Traversaro @traversaro |
| Dynamics | Silvio Traversaro @traversaro |
| IHMC | Gabriele Nava @gabrielenava |