<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12 (filtered medium)">
<style><!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Tahoma;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-reply;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--></style><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]-->
</head>
<body lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple">
<div class="WordSection1">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Vincent,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">I’m not an expert in web development, but what you are describing is a full port, requiring code rewrite in javascript I assume. I believe this is a large
effort, especially if we included all rQt widgets.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">The main benefit that I see is at the application level (i.e. user interfaces). In particular, we receive a lot of critical feedback about ROS being Ubuntu
only. Our “work-around” is to create web based user interfaces. Once it’s in a web browser, nobody questions what is running the server.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">I would propose that we focus on making application level tools web-based. To a certain extend the Robot Web Tools group has done this. I do not see great
value in moving introspection tools to a web based environment. Introspection is largely a developer task, why can’t they use native applications. If rQt tools weren’t written you might be able to make an argument for web based introspection, but they are
written and there seems to be little value in porting them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">All that being said…I am interested to hear if there are any application level tools that are missing from the Robot Web Tools.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Shaun Edwards<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Senior Research Engineer<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Manufacturing System Department<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><a href="http://robotics.swri.org"><span style="color:blue">http://robotics.swri.org</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><a href="http://rosindustrial.swri.org/"><span style="color:blue">http://rosindustrial.swri.org/</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><a href="http://ros.swri.org/"><span style="color:blue">http://ros.swri.org</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><a href="https://groups.google.com/group/swri-ros-pkg-dev/boxsubscribe"><span style="color:blue">Join the ROS-Industrial Developers List</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">Southwest Research Institute<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D">210-522-3277<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<div style="border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in">
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif""> ros-users-bounces@lists.ros.org [mailto:ros-users-bounces@lists.ros.org]
<b>On Behalf Of </b>Vincent Rabaud<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, June 25, 2014 3:05 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> User discussions<br>
<b>Subject:</b> [ros-users] Web introspection tools<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">At ROS Kong, some rQt on the web was demoed as well as a Gazebo web visualizer.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br>
I am no expert in web programing but what prevents us from moving rQt and RViz to the web/javascript ? The obvious advantages would be cross-platform support, optimizations independent of the underlying libraries, easier code to debug, no compilation. Plus,
there are already great tools like robotwebtools and rosbridge.<br>
<br>
Here are a few reasons I was told that could prevent that move; are those really valid ? Are there better reasons ?<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal">- hard to access local files (html is not aware of local files)<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal">- no customizable shaders in WebGL (is that the case ? do we need those ?)<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal">- slow JSON parsing libraries (aren't those optimized in recent browsers ?)<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal">- heavy bandwidth usage (how about binary JSON ?)<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>