Motion Strategy Library
University of Illinois
Contributors: Steve LaValle
James Juffner
Libo Yang
Peng Cheng
Anna Atramentov
The following directories are included in this distribution:
data: Numerous examples, stored one per subdirectory
docs: Documentation, including LaTeX and html
tests: Sample code that uses the library
include: The C++ header files for MSL
lib: Location of the MSL library (libMSL.a), when compiled
src: The source code of the library
INSTALLATION:
1. Make sure that the following libraries and packages are installed
on your system:
a) The FOX C++ library. This GNU package allows GUIs to be written
that can be ported to both Unix platforms and MS Windows. It was
developed under Linux, and the source is available. The default
install uses shared libraries. Make sure your LD_LIBRARY_PATH
environment variable is set to point to the shared object files.
http://www.cfdrc.com/FOX/fox.html
b) The PQP collision detection package from Univ. of North Carolina.
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~geom/SSV/
c) Open GL and GLUT libraries for 3D graphics. These are available on
most platforms, including Windows. All of these libraries are
included in RedHat Linux. In many cases, it is not necessary to
download them (they might even be installed already). Helpful web
pages are:
http://www.opengl.org/
http://reality.sgi.com/mjk/glut3/glut3.html
http://www.nvidia.com/
d) (OPTIONAL) Open Inventor which is available as open source (for Linux,
at least)
The objects look better in the inventor renderer, but it does not
presently have as many features (multiple views, attached cameras)
as the GL-based render.
2. Edit the file Makefile.config so that the appropriate paths are
set for each of the libraries, if any of these libraries do not appear
in the default search path of your compiler. Directories must be set
for both header inclusion and for linking. Note that you can select
whether or not you want the GL-based renderer or the Performer-based
renderer. By default, it is assumed that you want GL, but not
Performer.
3. From the top-level directory of MSL, run "make". This should
generate build all of the executables. In lib, the libMSL.a file will
be generated. Any programs that are written using MSL should be
linked with this file. Two executables, plangl and planleda should be
generated in the top-level directory. These are complete graphical
uder interfaces that use RRT planners to solve a variety of problems.
For example, try "plangl data/cage" or "plangl data/coffeemug", and try
the menu options.
4. See the documentation in "docs" or
http://msl.cs.uiuc.edu/msl/
for more information.
To test the software, try the following from this directory:
plangl data/coffeemug
or
planleda data/cross
Click on Plan one or more times, until a successful path is found.
Click on RenderCtl to control the animation.