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:
![](https://static.packt-cdn.com/products/9781788478953/graphics/50456185-8b91-4786-bf4d-9e0772f9f483.png)
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
![](https://static.packt-cdn.com/products/9781788478953/graphics/49ec0c09-e9c6-4968-93b8-56725c3e39d2.png)
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...