Tutorial for simple urdf models?

Question

I'm trying to model a simple hammer for use in Gazebo; I'm using ROS Fuerte in Ubuntu 12.04. It doesn't have to be terribly complicated, it's just to do some grasping stuff with the NASA Robonaut r2 model (which runs just fine). I've tried modeling a simple rectangle with a static joint to a cylinder in URDF, but I can't get anything to spawn. It either says it can't communicate or crashes Gazebo outright. I feel like I'm stumbling in the dark; there's precious little I can find for how to do object modeling for Gazebo, and any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Originally posted by cosmic_cow on Gazebo Answers with karma: 1 on 2012-10-14

Post score: 0

Answer 1

There's a hammer, wrench and drill in the new gazebo models database: https://bitbucket.org/osrf/gazebo_models (wiki: http://gazebosim.org/wiki/Model_database)

For making models take a look at the beginner's section in the tutorials: http://gazebosim.org/wiki/Tutorials ("Make a Model", "Importing a Mesh" and maybe also "Building a World")

Let me ask you a question as well though: "it's just to do some grasping stuff with the NASA Robonaut r2 model (which runs just fine)"
You're able to perform manipulation with NASA's R2 model? The last time I tried the R2 model (and it hasn't changed since then) it was unusable for anything but looking at it. The impedance controller was not usable for any form of precise arm navigation and when trying to get the arm stack working it failed due to collisions in the collision model (there's a post on ros answers about the issue).

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Originally posted by ThomasK with karma: 508 on 2012-10-16

This answer was ACCEPTED on the original site

Post score: 1

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Original comments

Comment by asomerville on 2012-11-30:
That vote should put you over the karma threshold for voting. Do what I did and use your limited votes on the best answers and question to help seed healthy community participation.