RViz is a 3D visualization tool that can display robot models. It provides a configurable Graphical User Interface (GUI) that allows the user to display any information they may request for the task being carrying out. RViz can be used for both robot visualization and for debugging specific features while building the Unified Robot Description Format (URDF) model. This format uses XML to simulate the robot.
To illustrate how to use RViz and URDF, in this chapter, you will build a simple two-wheeled robot, which is the digital twin of GoPiGo3. You will create the URDF file that describes the robot's main components. This file acts as the input for visualization in several ROS tools – not only RViz, but also the Gazebo simulation tool, which also includes a physics engine. Gazebo will be covered in the next chapter, while in...
