New scene manager GUI plugin that works with ign-gui's MinimalScene

[chapulina]

🎉 New feature

Closes gazebosim/gz-gui#137

Requires gazebosim/gz-gui#221

Summary

This is a proof of concept for how an ign-gazebo GuiSystem can work with ign-gui's MinimalScene. The idea is to split the concerns:

• ign-gui's MinimalScene instantiates a 3D scene and paints to the window
• ign-gazebo's GzSceneManager adds, removes and updates visuals on that scene, based on Gazebo's entities and components.

The two plugins synchronize through the Render event, that's called by MinimalScene within the rendering thread.

This initial implementation supports adding entities to the scene and updating their poses. There's lots still to be figured out:

• Choose a render engine from the command line (this information needs to be sent to ign-gui's MinimalScene before it creates a scene.)
• With the current implementation, ign-gui's MinimalScene will always create a scene. That plugin needs to be updated so it can be attached to the sensor system's scene if that exists, when running on the same process (related to Support running server and client in the same process #556) PR Run server and client in the same process #793

Missing features that could possibly be moved to independent ign-gui plugins:

• Markers Added MarkerManager Plugin  gz-gui#247
• Move to / follow Added camera tracking gz-gui#226
• Move camera Added Interactive view control plugin gz-gui#231

Missing features that could possibly be moved to independent ign-gazebo plugins:

• Spawn Added Spawn plugin #983
• Select Added transform control and select entities GUI plugins #854
• Visualizations Added VisualizationCapabilities plugin #988
• Transform controls Added transform control and select entities GUI plugins #854
• Record Video Make Video recorder plugin work with MinimalScene #900

Test it

To try it out, run:

ign gazebo --gui-config src/ign-gazebo/src/gui/gui.config rolling_shapes.sdf -v 4

Checklist

• Signed all commits for DCO
• Added tests
• Added example and/or tutorial
• Updated documentation (as needed)
• Updated migration guide (as needed)
• codecheck passed (See contributing)
• All tests passed (See test coverage)
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[ahcorde]

I was reviewing some of the plugin in ign-gazebo that you mentioned to move them to a independent plugin (inside ign-gazebo). In particular these 3:

• Select
• View collisions
• Transform controls

All of them require the renderUtil class which means that we need to create a renderUtil object and in each one of them we should update it (I think these calls are very costly).

Anyhow I will prototype something

[ahcorde]

• MarkerManager plugin: Added MarkerManager Plugin  gz-gui#247

we should add to the gui.config file when the PR is merged

<plugin filename="MarkerManager" name="Marker manager">
  <ignition-gui>
    <title>Marker Manager</title>
    <property type="bool" key="showTitleBar">false</property>
    <property type="string" key="state">docked</property>
    <property key="resizable" type="bool">false</property>
    <property key="width" type="double">5</property>
    <property key="height" type="double">5</property>
    <property key="state" type="string">floating</property>
    <property key="showTitleBar" type="bool">false</property>
  </ignition-gui>
</plugin>

[ahcorde]

I was having a look to the record video plugin but there is a feature to record the video in lockstep mode which means I can create the plugin but instead of including the plugin in ign-gui it should live in ign-gazebo.

@chapulina, is this assumption correct ? or am i missing something ?

[chapulina]

@chapulina, is this assumption correct ?

Good point, Ignition GUI doesn't have the concept of time, so it would take some extra efforts if we wanted to move that plugin there. I'm fine keeping it in Ignition Gazebo 👍

[chapulina]

@ahcorde , I'm opening this PR for review.

I reverted the changes to gui.config, so the current PR doesn't affect any current users.

The new scene manager can be tested with the minimal_scene.sdf example world.

One suggestion for testing is to:

• Start the example that uses this plugin: ign gazebo minimal_scene.sdf
• While that's open, open just a client using the default config: ign gazebo -g --gui-config src/ign-gazebo/src/gui/gui.config

Then use the 2nd window to insert, delete and move shapes, and verify that they move on the new plugin too.

[ahcorde]

Two minor style issues. Otherwise LGTM