Understanding the vrep_plugin

The vrep_plugin is part of the V-REP API framework. Even though the plugin is correctly installed in your system, the load operation will fail if the roscore was not running at that time. A pop-up error will inform users if the simulations scenes need the vrep_plugin because the roscore was not running before running the simulator, or it is not installed in the system:

Figure 5: Error displayed when vrep_plugin is used without running the roscore

After starting up V-REP with the vrep_plugin correctly loaded, V-REP will act as a ROS node called /vrep. This can be shown using the following command:

$ rosnode list

Figure 6: List of active ROS nodes after running V-REP with vrep_plugin

Other ROS nodes can communicate with V-REP in the following ways:

• vrep_plugin offers ROS services. Different services are available after launching V-REP to control the simulation scene or its state.
• vrep_plugin can be enabled to subscribe or advertise topics. As a normal ROS node, simulation...