PlayerStage 2.0.3

The following instructions allow you to set up a local installation of PlayerStage in your home directory on the DGC cluster.

Local Installation of Player

• Download Player from [1]
• Unzip the Player archive. It will create a subdirectory player-2.0.3. Change directory (cd) to player-2.0.3.
• Following the installation instructions at [2]:
  • Configure the installation by running the command "./configure --prefix=home/username/ps" It take 2-3 minutes for ./configure to complete
  • Then type "make"
  • Then "make install"

If all goes well, you won't get any errors and you can go on and install Stage. Most likely that won't happen as some of the packages included with Player will be buggy. If you get an error, try the following:

• note the directory in which the error is occurring
• scroll up to the end of the output to ./configure and look for the name of the package corresponding with this directory
• rerun the configure command adding the option "--disable-badpackage" where "badpackage" is the name of the package causing the error

While doing local installations during MVWTfest_January_2007, the packages "camerauvc" and "wavefront" caused problems for people.

Local Installation of Stage

• Download Stage from [3]
• Unzip the Stage archive. It will create a subdirectory stage-2.0.3. Change directory (cd) to stage-2.0.3.
• Following the installation instructions at [4]:
  • Configure the installation by running the command "./configure --prefix=home/username/ps" You want to install Stage to the same directory as Player.
  • Then type "make"
  • The command in Step 7 on the web page doesn't work: use "./bin/stest share/stage/worlds/simple.world robot1" instead
  • Then "make install"

You should get an error that says something like "cannot find file /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt" To fix this we use ln -s to make a link between here and the actual file location. On our system this file is located in /usr/share/X11/rgb.txt - you can set up a symbolic link by typing the following commands:

• cd /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/
• sudo ln -s /usr/share/X11/rgb.txt .

Introductory Example

Next, pull up one of the included examples to show how the cfg file (in Stage) can be pulled up separately from the robot controller (in Player)

• Run the command "./bin/player share/stage/worlds/simple.cfg" A Stage window should open with the same world as in the previous example and a robot in the lower right corner. The robot should not be moving yet.
• Open a new terminal window. Set the directory to "~/share/player/examples/libraryc++"
• If you ls this directory, there will be several robot controllers you can run. Run "./laserobstacleavoid" The robot will start moving about the screen, keeping a good distance away from all the obstacles.

If you have problems running laserobstacleavoid, you may need to set the playerpath using "export PLAYERPATH=~/ps/lib"