[ros-users] RViz on OS X

[Ken Conley]

On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 8:47 PM, William Woodall <wjwwood at gmail.com> wrote:
> I can definitely empathize with you about the Macports and 32-bit/64-bit
> issues.  In fact, most of the stuff in the wiki is about making ROS and
> Macports play nice, which currently means universal variants and building
> ROS completely 32-bit.  My friend John got RViz working with the built-in wx
> and python that come from Apple, but I want to say there were some issues.
> I would like to cut the Macports cord, but there are many, many dependencies
> that must be fulfilled at the moment.  I would love to see something similar
> to fink be successful again, it never made sense to me why binary
> distribution wouldn't work great on OS X.  I think another way ROS could be
> much more OS X compatible would be to move away from wx (Carbon dependency
> drives many 32-bit issues). I know that moving to Qt was discussed at some
> point, and I really think that would be a worth wild move, because I have
> been very impressed with the Qt framework's portability and consistency,
> though I recognize the amount of effort involved in such a move.

Our guidance moving forward is to use Qt for new GUI development, but,
as you note, it would take significant work to redo all of the ROS GUI
tools to make this happen.  We are looking for people who are willing
to assist in this effort.

> I am interested to see if the changes in rosbuild2 and rosdep will ease
> these concerns as well.

At the very least, updates to rosdep will make it easier to use
easy_install on top of the standard OS X Python, which will eliminate
the python_setup mess that never seems to work right.

rosbuild2 + new rosdep will also help if we are willing to
systematically replace all of the macports dependencies with our own
install-from-source solution.  This would result in a more stable
solution, but it requires more maintenance on our part.  Regardless,
we will have to go through similar effort for ROS on Windows.

Thanks for your thoughts.

cheers,
Ken

> --
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> William Woodall
> Graduate Software Engineering
> Auburn University
> w at auburn.edu
> wjwwood at gmail.com
> williamjwoodall.com
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 11:06 PM, Ken Conley <kwc at willowgarage.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 8:53 PM, William Woodall <wjwwood at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > I made one, but I think on the ros.org wiki might be better in the end,
>> > also
>> > most of the patches are already in tickets and in the upstream svn for
>> > ros.
>>
>> This is great work and thanks for taking the time to also document +
>> send nice, concise patches.  I'm looking forward to better support in
>> Electric for OS X.
>>
>> Part of the challenge with OS X has been Macports, which has been a
>> moving target (as has the 32-bit -> 64-bit nastiness).  Our OS X
>> install was originally spec'd back in 10.4 days where the underlying
>> platform was quite different.  I'd be interested in hearing ideas of
>> how to revamp this (including cutting the Macports cord).  I made an
>> initial investigation into moving the Python libraries off of Macports
>> and use the builtin Python interpreter, but got hung up on some
>> integration issues.  With some upcoming changes to rosdep those issues
>> should be easier to solve.
>>
>> cheers,
>> Ken
>>
>>
>> > Thanks,
>> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>> > William Woodall
>> > Graduate Software Engineering
>> > Auburn University
>> > w at auburn.edu
>> > wjwwood at gmail.com
>> > williamjwoodall.com
>> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>> >
>> >
>> > On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 10:03 PM, Serge Stinckwich
>> > <serge.stinckwich at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 10:00 AM, William Woodall <wjwwood at gmail.com>
>> >> wrote:
>> >> > I don't mind, but I can also give you access to mine so that you can
>> >> > edit it
>> >> > if you like, at some point we should probably put this some where
>> >> > else.
>> >>
>> >> Yes i think so. Could you create a ROX repository and move the wiki
>> >> page
>> >> here ?
>> >> We will put also all the patches here also.
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Serge Stinckwich
>> >> UMI UMMISCO 209 (IRD/UPMC), Hanoi, Vietnam
>> >> Every DSL ends up being Smalltalk
>> >> http://doesnotunderstand.org/
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>> >
>> >
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