[ros-users] Robot Simulator V-REP now open source.

[Marc Freese]

Dear ROS community,

We are happy to announce that the V-REP robot simulator, that includes 
an extensive and powerful ROS interface, is now open source. As of now, 
it is also fully free and without any limitation for students, teachers, 
professors, schools and universities. No registration required. 
Moreover, V-REP is now available for customization and sub-licensing.

V-REP is the Swiss army knife among robot simulators: you won't find a 
simulator with more features and functions, or a more elaborate API:

- Cross-platform: Windows, Mac OSX and Linux (32 & 64 bit)
- Open source: full source code downloadable and compilable. Precompiled 
binaries also available for each platform
- 6 programming approaches: embedded scripts, plugins, add-ons, ROS 
nodes, remote API clients, or custom solutions
- 6 programming languages: C/C++, Python, Java, Lua, Matlab, and Urbi
- API: more than 400 different functions
- ROS: >100 services, >30 publisher types, >25 subscriber types, extendable
- Importers/exporters: URDF, COLLADA, DXF, OBJ, 3DS, STL
- 2 Physics engines: ODE and Bullet
- Kinematic solver: IK and FK for ANY mechanism, can also be embedded on 
your robot
- Interference detection: calculations between ANY meshes. Very fast
- Minimum distance calculation: calculations between ANY meshes. Very fast
- Path planning: holonomic in 2-6 dimensions and non-holonomic for 
car-like vehicles
- Vision sensors: includes built-in image processing, fully extendable
- Proximity sensors: very realistic and fast (minimum distance within a 
detection volume)
- User interfaces: built-in, fully customizable (editor included)
- Robot motion library: fully integrated Reflexxes Motion Library type 4
- Data recording and visualisation: time graphs, X/Y graphs or 3D curves
- Shape edit modes: includes a semi-automatic primitive shape extraction 
method
- Dynamic particles: simulation of water- or air-jets
- Model browser: includes drag-and-drop functionality, also during 
simulation
- Other: Multi-level undo/redo, movie recorder, convex decomposition, 
simulation of paint, exhaustive documentation, etc.

For more information, please visit http://www.coppeliarobotics.com or 
have a look at following demo video:

http://youtu.be/bwGYUayglHY

Best regards,

Marc

-- 
Dr. Marc Freese
Coppelia Robotics / V-REP
Mobile: +41 79 830 83 56
marc at coppeliarobotics.com
http://www.coppeliarobotics.com