Robotics Toolbox for C++

Getting Started

Prerequisites

The Robotics Toolbox for C++ depends on the following external C++ tools:

• Boost (see https://github.com/boostorg/boost)
• Eigen (see https://eigen.tuxfamily.org/index.php?title=Main_Page)
• GoogleTest (see https://github.com/google/googletest)
• OpenCV (see https://github.com/opencv/opencv)

Additionally, the following Python packages are required:

• Coverxygen (see https://pypi.org/project/coverxygen/)
• Flake8 (see https://pypi.org/project/flake8/)
• Gcovr (see https://pypi.org/project/gcovr/)
• GitPython (see https://pypi.org/project/GitPython/)
• Metrix++ (see https://pypi.org/project/metrixpp/)

In the following, it is assumed that the C++ tools and Python packages mentioned above have been installed already.

A Dockerfile based on Ubuntu 22.04 with all the prerequisites available is part of the repository (see Docker section). In case the development shall happen inside a Docker container, Docker also needs to be installed on the system (see https://www.docker.com/).

Clone Repository

To get your own version of the Git repository, you can clone the repository to your own system. This can be done by running

git clone --recursive https://github.com/berndkitt/robotics_toolbox.git

in the terminal. Afterwards a subdirectory called robotics_toolbox will be available inside the directory the command was called.

CMake

The Robotics Toolbox for C++ uses CMake as build environment. In a first step, the build environment needs to be generated. This can be done by running

cmake -B ./build/ -S ./

in the terminal, while being in the main directory of the toolbox. This will create a directory called build which contains all the temporary build files.

Afterwards, the individual parts of the toolbox can be build. It is recommended to build all targets of the toolbox by running

cmake --build ./build/ -t all -j4

in the terminal. This will create a directory called libs which contains all the libraries of the toolbox as well as a directory called bin containing all the executables (i.e. unit tests, examples,...).

Docker

In order to make use of the Docker container, the first step is to build the Docker image by running

docker build -t robotics_toolbox .

in the terminal.

After the Docker image has been built, a Docker container can by started by running

docker run -dit -v <absolute_path_on_host>:<absolute_path_in_container> --name robotics_toolbox -h ubuntu robotics_toolbox

in the terminal.

Using the command above, the local version of the repository is made available inside the Docker container. absolute_path_on_host needs to be replaced by the directory the repository was cloned into on the host machine (see Clone Repository section), absolute_path_in_container needs to be replaced by the path the repository shall be available inside the container.

Example: docker run -dit -v /development/robotics_toolbox/:/mnt/ --name robotics_toolbox -h ubuntu robotics_toolbox

Changes made in the repository while working inside the container will also be available on the host machine.

Versioning

The release numbers follow the Semantic Versioning scheme (see https://semver.org/). Hence, a version number has the following format:

MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH

The individual numbers are incremented as follows:

• MAJOR: Incremented when major changes were made (not backwards compatible). Whenever this number is incremented, MINOR and PATCH will be set to 0.
• MINOR: Incremented when new features were implemented (backwards compatible). Whenever this number is incremented, PATCH will be set to 0.
• PATCH: Incremented when small bug fixes were implemented (backwards compatible).

License

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.