Plugins

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Writing plugins

A Gazebo GUI plugin is a shared library that defines a widget. The plugin contains QML code that specifies what the widget looks like, as well as C++ code that defines the plugin's behavior and ties it to other libraries.

See HelloPlugin for an example.

Finding plugins

Gazebo GUI will look for plugins on the following paths, in this order:

1. All paths set on the GZ_GUI_PLUGIN_PATH environment variable
2. All paths added by calling gz::gui::addPluginPath
3. ~/.gz/gui/plugins
4. Plugins which are installed with Gazebo GUI

Configuring plugins

Gazebo GUI supports loading XML configuration files, which may contain parameters to be passed directly to the plugin. See the Config tutorial for more information.

Built-in plugins

Image display

Display images from a Gazebo Transport topic.

gz gui -c examples/config/image.config

or

gz gui -s ImageDisplay

Publisher

Publish messages on a Gazebo Transport topic.

1. Listen to string messages on the /echo topic:

    gz topic -e -t /echo
   

2. On a new terminal, open the publisher GUI:

    gz gui -s Publisher
   

3. The GUI is pre-filled to publish "Hello" messages on the /echo topic. Click "Publish" to publish a message and see it on the terminal.

World stats and control

• Stats: Display sim / real time published on a topic
• Control: Buttons to make play / pause / step service requests

    gz gui -c examples/config/time.config
  

Topic echo

Echo messages from a Gazebo Transport topic.

gz gui -c examples/config/pubsub.config

Key publisher

Publish key presses through Gazebo Transport.

gz gui -c examples/config/keypublisher.config

Change the topic to echo to /keyboard/keypress, echo, and start pressing keys.

Topic viewer

Not ported to versions 1 or higher yet

Discover all Gazebo Transport topics and introspect its fields.

gz gui -c examples/config/topicViewer.config

Topics stats

Not ported to versions 1 or higher yet

Show basic stats of all Gazebo Transport topics at the same time.

gz gui -c examples/config/topicsStats.config

Requester and Responder

Not ported to versions 1 or higher yet

Make custom service requests and serve custom services with these two plugins.

gz gui -c examples/config/reqres.config

Displays

Not ported to versions 1 or higher yet

This is a container for various Display Plugins that each paint on a Scene. The following example includes the display plugins that are installed with Gazebo GUI by default.

gz gui -c examples/config/display_plugins.config

Finding display plugins

Not ported to versions 1 or higher yet

Gazebo GUI will look for display plugins on the following paths, in this order:

1. All paths set on the GZ_GUI_DISPLAY_PLUGIN_PATH environment variable
2. ~/.gz/gui/display_plugins
3. Display plugins that are installed with Gazebo GUI