Robo Blender

CAUTION

Deprecated/Obsolete. As of December 2014, the ROS-plus-blender architecture implemented here has been superceded by the "Eva" ROS-plus-blender architecture that can be found in blender_api and blender_api_msgs. The newer architecture provides a simpler, easier-to-use interface, and provides a greater number of functions. The below provides support for the older Arthur and Einstein head designs.

This provides a ROS node which may be used to control Blender rigs, and to publish the resulting rig position information (for the neck, face, eyes). The position information can then be used to drive motors (for example). The pau2motors ROS node will listen to the published messages to control the Einstein and Arthur robot heads.

The node is started within Blender, and has direct access to the Blender context. It uses different modes to control the rig, with different modes used for different rigs.

Currently two rigs are included:

• robo.blend -- Arthur rig, can look around, track objects.
• animate-test.blend -- Arthur rig, can animate four basic expressions.

Although both of these rigs are "Arthur", they are not compatible with each other.

The last working version of the Einstein rig is in the branch named "einstein-dev". It has not been kept up to date.

Running

The easiest way to run this node is to use it with a Docker container. Docker containers specify all of the pre-requisite software components that are needed to in order for a demo to be run. An all-in-one containder for this node has been defined at opencog/ros, in the ros-indigo-animation image. The demo process is then:

• Install docker
• git clone http://github.com/opencog/ros
• cd opencog/ros/indigo
• ./build-all.sh
• cd animation and follow instructions in the README file there.

If you do the above, you can skip the Manual Install steps below.

Manual Install and Operation

Pre-requisites

The following packages need to be installed:

    apt-get install python3-yaml python3-rospkg

Caution: python3+ros has issues; see this bug: ros-infrastructure/rospkg#71

This can be worked-around as follows:

    git clone git://github.com/ros/rospkg.git
    cd rospkg
    python3 setup.py install
    cd ..
    git clone git://github.com/ros-infrastructure/catkin_pkg.git
    cd catkin_pkg
    python3 setup.py install

Co-requisites

Building this package requires:

• blender_api_msgs for API message definitions.

The tracking mode requires that eva_behavior ROS node be set up and running. Additional instructions in the 'cookbook' section, below.

Manual start

To run, start blender, and load either the robo.blend or the animate-test.blend rig file. The ROS node is not started until one of the following is performed:

• Hover mouse over the text editor and press Alt+P
• Select the text-editor menu "Edit->Run Script" item. (the text-editor menu is at bottom-left).
• Start blender as blender robo.blend --enable-autoexec -P startup.py

Verify that the ROS node has started: rostopic list -v should show /cmd_blendermode as a subscribed topic.

Don't forget to start roscore first.

Modes

The rigs have several different modes in which they can operate. These are:

• LookAround -- Random looking about.
• TrackDev -- Head/eyes track a region of interest.
• Animations -- Menu of scripted animations.
• Manual Head -- Manual control from blender, debugging
• Dummy -- Do nothing. Neutral expression.

The mode is set by sending one of the above modes, as a string, to the /cmd_blender topic. For example:

rostopic pub --once /cmd_blendermode std_msgs/String LookAround

Both rigs listen for /cmd_blender to switch between the different blender nodes.

Currently, only the robo.blend rig can respond to the LookAround and TrackDev modes. In contrast, only the animate.blend rig can respond to the Animations mode. Sorry!

LookAround

Move the head and eyes in an endless cycle. Movements are defined via a python script in the rig. The movements are randomly generated, with eyes moving faster than head.

For example: rostopic pub --once /cmd_blendermode std_msgs/String LookAround

Inputs:

• (none)

Outputs

• neck_euler - publishes neck angle
• eyes - publishes eyes movements

TrackDev

Eyes and head track a target, defined by a region of interest (ROI). The system maintains multiple targets visible in the scene. The target that will be tracked is selected with the /tracking_action topic.

For example: rostopic pub --once /cmd_blendermode std_msgs/String TrackDev

Each ROI is denoted with a cube.

Currently, the ROI's are human faces, extracted by pi_vision from a usb video camera feed. Multiple cameras can be supported by adding them to src/config/inputs.yaml. Each pi_vision node should run in it's own ROS namespace. The default (root node) camera is bound to chest_pivision (configurable in inputs.yaml). The eye namespace (export ROS_NAMESPACE=eye) is currently bound to eye_pivision.

Topics subscribed:

• /tracking_action (eva_behavior/tracking_action) - Listens for information on objects to track.

Inputs

• chest_pivision (NRegionsOfInterest) - populates the scene with ROI from chest camera.
• eye_pivision (NRegionsOfInterest) - populates the scene with ROI from eye camera.

Outputs

• neck_euler - publishes neck angle.
• eyes - publishes eyes movements.

Animations

Plays pre-defined animations. These are defined as object actions within the blender rig. The list of valid animations can be obtained in two ways: using the old /animations_list topic or the new /blender_api/available_emotion_states topic. Neither topic list is published until the rig is placed in animation mode.

Only the animate-test.blend rig supports Animations mode.

For example: rostopic pub --once /cmd_blendermode std_msgs/String Animations

Topics subscribed:

• cmd_animations(std_msgs/String) - colon separated string which sends command (play,stop, pause) follwed optionaly the animation name.

  For example: rostopic pub --once /cmd_animations std_msgs/String play:yawn-1

Outputs:

• full_head - publishes expression neck and eyes information.

Manual Head

Used for animation development and debugging. Allows the designer to control and move the rig, thus controlling the physical robot head.

Outputs:

• full_head - publishes expressions for neck and eyes positions.

Dummy

Idle.

For example: rostopic pub --once /cmd_blendermode std_msgs/String Dummy

Inputs

Mainly one input class is currently used:

• NRegionsOfInterest - Listens to the specified eventtopic for eva_behavior/tracking_event messages, which inform about new and removed sensor_msgs/RegionOfInterest topics of the format specified in sourcetopic. Converts them to 3D space in blender and updates their position.
• RegionOfInterest - Listens to specified topic for sensor_msgs/RegionOfInterest message. Converts it to 3D space in blender and updates the blender object position in the blender.
• Faceshift - allows input from faceshift, changes shapekeys of the face mesh.

Outputs

Outputs are used to publish rig data back to ROS. ROS topics are defined in config.

The following outputs are currently used:

• neck_euler - gets neck's Euler rotation, publishes as basic_head_api.msg/PointHead
• face - gets mesh shapekeys and publishes them as pau2motors/pau.
• eyes - gets eyes angles and publishes them as pau2motors/pau
• eyes_beorn - gets Beorn's rig eyes angles and publishes in pau2motors/pau message on specified topic.
• neck_euler_beorn - gets Beorn's rig neck rotation in Euler angles and publishes in basic_head_api.msg/PointHead
• full_head - combines face, neck_euler_beorn, eyes_beorn outputs to one.

Cookbook recipes

Example LookAround Mode

The default rig demonstrates the LookAround mode.

	# Start blender, load head, start scripts
	blender ./robo_blender/src/robo.blend --enable-autoexec -P ./robo_blender/src/startup.py

	# Start the look-around mode
	rostopic pub --once /cmd_blendermode std_msgs/String LookAround

	# Verify that tracking output is sent to the PAU motors
	rostopic echo /arthur/cmd_eyes_pau

Example TrackingDev Mode.

The TrackingDev mode requires that the [eva_behavior] ROS node be set up and running.

	# Make sure all packages can be found.
	export ROS_PACKAGE_PATH=${ROS_PACKAGE_PATH}:... uvc_cam, pi_vision, etc.

	# Start up the video camera.  Use uvc_cam from hansonrobotics github.
	roslaunch uvc_cam uvc_cam.launch device:=/dev/video0

	# Verify camera is working
	rosrun image_view image_view image:=/camera/image_raw

	# Start pi_vision face tracker
	roslaunch pi_face_tracker face_tracker_uvc_cam.launch

	# Start blender, load head, start scripts
	blender ./robo_blender/src/robo.blend --enable-autoexec -P ./robo_blender/src/startup.py

	# Start the eva_behavior node
	rosrun eva_behavior general_behavior.py

	# Start the tracker
	rostopic pub /cmd_blendermode std_msgs/String TrackDev

	# XXX How to list the valid values for tracking_action?

	# XXX Set the roi to track.
	rostopic pub /tracking_action eva_behavior/tracking_action XXX ???

	# Verify that tracking output is sent to the PAU motors
	rostopic echo /arthur/cmd_eyes_pau

Example Multi-camera TrackingDev Mode. Same as above, except that new cameras are now added:

	# Specify the 'eye' namespace
	export ROS_NAMESPACE=eye

	# Start up the video camera, but on a different vido device.
	roslaunch uvc_cam uvc_cam.launch device:=/dev/video1

	# Verify camera is working
	rosrun image_view image_view image:=/eye/camera/image_raw

	# Start pi_vision face tracker with the alternate camera
	# XXX this doesn't work ...
	roslaunch pi_face_tracker face_tracker_uvc_cam.launch input_rgb_image:=/eye/camera/image_raw

Example New-style Animations Mode

This requies a blender file that contains animations. The animate-test (another Arthur rig) will do. The blender file should be kept in the ./robo_blender/src/ directory, else the relative path names for loading main.py will not work.

	# Start blender, load head, start scripts.
	blender ./robo_blender/src/animate-test.blend --enable-autoexec -P ./robo_blender/src/startup.py

	# Start the animations mode
	rostopic pub --once /cmd_blendermode std_msgs/String Animations

	# Obtain the list of supported animations. The result should show:
	# actions: ['angry-1', 'sad-1', 'happy-1', 'surprised-1']
	rostopic echo -n 1 /blender_api/available_emotion_states

	# Perform one of the supported animations
	rostopic pub --once /blender_api/set_emotion_state blender_api_msgs/EmotionState '{name: sad-1, magnitude: 1.0, duration: [6, 500000000]}'

	# Verify that tracking output is sent to the PAU motors
	rostopic echo /arthur/cmd_eyes_pau

Example Old-style Animations Mode

This requies a blender file that contains animations. The animate-test (another Arthur rig) will do. The blender file should be kept in the ./robo_blender/src/ directory, else the relative path names for loading main.py will not work.

	# Start blender, load head, start scripts.
	blender ./robo_blender/src/animate-test.blend --enable-autoexec -P ./robo_blender/src/startup.py

	# Start the animations mode
	rostopic pub --once /cmd_blendermode std_msgs/String Animations

	# Obtain the list of supported animations. The result should show:
	# actions: ['angry-1', 'sad-1', 'happy-1', 'surprised-1']
	rostopic echo -n 1 /blender_api/available_emotion_states

	# Perform one of the supported animations
	rostopic pub --once /cmd_animations std_msgs/String play:sad-1

	# Verify that tracking output is sent to the PAU motors
	rostopic echo /arthur/cmd_eyes_pau

	# Pause the animation
	rostopic pub --once /cmd_animations std_msgs/String pause

	# Restart the animation
	rostopic pub --once /cmd_animations std_msgs/String play

	# Halt the animation
	rostopic pub --once /cmd_animations std_msgs/String stop

#####Copyright (c) 2013-2018 Hanson Robotics, Ltd.