Thanks to everyone for filling out the Gazebo survey, and helping direct our development plans. We have received 128 responses from simulation users around the world. The following is a summary of the survey results

Feature votes

The survey consisted of thirteen high-level features and a text entry for comments. The features were on a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 is low importance and 5 high. The following figure shows the sum of the votes for each feature. A nice dividing line exists around the 420 vote count. Six features are above this line:

• Physics validation,
• Diagnostic tools,
• Physics helpers,
• Rapid design tools,
• Documentation, and
• Performance improvements.

Comments

The following is a condensed list of feedback we received in the comments section of the survey. There is no particular order to this list.

• Tutorials and documentation: Comments included improved tutorials for plugins, developing new sensors, debugging, and robot control.
• Multiple distributions: This includes support for Windows, Mac, and other distributions of Linux besides Ubuntu.
• Performance: Using Gazebo in courses where students have low power computers would be helpful, and better support for laptops.
• Visualization and tools: Display of real and simulated sensor data. Support rewinding simulation, mobile obstacles (which I'm interpreting to be models that can be scripted), and improved human models.
• Physics: Support for springs, omniwheels and tracked robots, better grasping, air and water flows, grass and uneven terrain, fixed joints, stable and accurate physics, and better default physics values for different environments (eg: indoor vs outdoor).
• Formats: Allow import of Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) files, commonly used in the AEC industry. Merge SDF and URDF. Support for FMI and co-simulation. Get ROS to use Ignition Transport.
• Design: Graphical editor to build and edit robots and models. Not more editing text files.

Thanks to everyone for participating in the survey. We received a lot of thanks and appreciation for developing and maintaining simulation, and our own Jackie Kay received a special shout out for helping on the brr-users group. We are actively integrating this feedback into our roadmap, which will be updated over the next few days.