gz-play, replay simulations (project proposal)

ROS Projects
1

Hi, I wanted to propose a project which would be very useful for researchers, and people doing work with simulations.
I plan to start building this project soon, but the jist of it is is:

  1. Utilizing gz-web and the MCAP data format to make a simple web service which simply plays the recorded MCAP file in the browser, allowing the user to simply view the simulation, and optionally plot the rosbags from a desired topic.
  2. There should be no need to actually simulate the physics, since we are simply replaying the data.
  3. Allows for a very quick way to demonstrate projects and for collaboration.

There are some engineering challenges to work out for this, mostly storage related.

Does something like this already exist?

2

Won’t the result of this be very similar to Foxglove? Or is there an important nuance that I’m missing?

3

the project i propose is primary intended for simulation based research and prototyping, i often find that i need to showcase my simulations but the best i can do right now is record a video.

I don’t see how i can do this with foxglove.

1 Like
4

I think I understand now. You want a combination of a (generative) simulator and a playback, meaning that even while playing back the recording (mcap/rosbag), you still want to use the simulator for generating and rendering the 3d scene and/or anything else that might be of interest but wasn’t recorded. Did I get that right?

5

yes, that is exactly what i want/ want to build!

1 Like
6

Nvm , gazebo playback already exists :man_facepalming: