April Robotics Toolkit
Installation
These instructions are tested against Ubuntu 10.04. (and Ubuntu 11.04)
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Install necessary packages
apt-get install emacs git-core ant subversion gtk-doc-tools libglib2.0-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev gv libncurses-dev openjdk-6-jdk autopoint libgl1-mesa-dev libpng12-dev libdc1394-22-dev
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Install LCM
cd $HOME git clone https://code.google.com/p/lcm lcm cd lcm ./bootstrap.sh ./configure make sudo make install
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Set up environment variables
Add the following lines to .bashrc
export CLASSPATH=$CLASSPATH:/usr/share/java/gluegen-rt.jar:/usr/local/share/java/lcm.jar:$HOME/april/java/april.jar:./ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:$HOME/april/lib alias java='java -ea -server'
Then reload your bash settings (you won’t need to do this the next time you log in):
source ~/.bashrc
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Install April Toolkit
cd $HOME git clone git://april.eecs.umich.edu/home/git/april.git cd april/src make all cd $HOME cd april/java ant
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Take it for a spin!
You can test the 3D visualization environment with:
java april.vis.VisTest
Or try out the camera acquisition software with:
java april.jcam.JCamView
But I just need the basic Java support. Isn’t there an easier way?
For a minimum configuration, without support for cameras or Vis (i.e., you might be on a platform for which these are not supported), you must still install LCM first. But then you can build the april.jar file without any addition fuss with:
ant build-jar
Naturally, if you try to run any application that requires native code, it will unceremoniously crash.
Troubleshooting
- Build Troubles in 11.04? the 1394 package has a bug, it might not build on your system. If you are getting an imagesource build error, try installing the pre-openCV packages.
- Camera troubles ? - read ubuntu guide to using a webcam - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Webcam
- Permission denied errors when opening a camera? Try setting up a “udev rule” to automatically fix the permissions and mount point for the device.