Why does DRCSIM Atlas robot model use URDF?

Question

Sorry for the weird typing, but if I put DRCSIM in the title, lots of old message titles suddenly appear and I am not allowed to type this text into the interface.

Why is the DRCSIM model using what I thought was the "old style" modeling language URDF? I translated the robot model into SDF 1.3 to get control of and simplify the code used by the plugins. The only thing that didn't translate was the safety-controller field in the joint descriptions. Is there some undocumented magic that is going on with URDF that doesn't happen with SDF?

Thanks, Chris

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Originally posted by cga on Gazebo Answers with karma: 223 on 2012-12-19

Post score: 0

Answer 1

A lot of ROS packages rely on URDF, and we need those ROS packages to control Atlas. Until ROS is updated to use SDF, we have to be in this ugly state of supporting both SDF and URDF.

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Originally posted by nkoenig with karma: 7676 on 2013-01-11

This answer was ACCEPTED on the original site

Post score: 1

Answer 2

Main reason being to take advantage of some tools built in ros (such as rviz, mechanism controller / controller manager, etc.) for initial development of the robot. Secondary reason being that URDF is simpler and non-simulation specific.

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Originally posted by hsu with karma: 1873 on 2012-12-20

This answer was NOT ACCEPTED on the original site

Post score: 2