Issues with Drake reported in the discussion forum of Underactuated robotics (Edx course)

[joselpart]

Hi,

Following a thread about issues reported on the Edx Underactuated Robotics discussion forum -> I am having some issues with my installation of Drake. In the beginning, I tried the examples proposed in the installation instructions and everything appeared to be fine. However, today I tried to execute the commands given in the MATLAB example from Example 1.1 (Robot Manipulators) from the first chapter in the book and some of them where giving errors. Specifically, in the first version of the example I just got minor errors with the visualizer.inspector() function but the simulation run fine.

On the other hand, the so-called simpler version of the example didn't run properly. The baffling part is that the first time, the instruction:

plant = RigidBodyManipulator('SimpleDoublePendulum.urdf');

run properly but, after running the function:

visualizer = plant.constructVisualizer();

MatLab closed unexpectedly after prompting a message in the console which I couldn't get to read. However, after a few trials, the instruction:

plant = RigidBodyManipulator('SimpleDoublePendulum.urdf');

started throwing the following error:

Invalid MEX-file 'D:\My Documents\Courses\Underactuated Robots\drake-distro\drake\systems\plants\constructModelmex.mexw64': The specified module cannot be found.

Error in RigidBodyManipulator/createMexPointer (line 1776) obj.mex_model_ptr = constructModelmex(obj);

Error in RigidBodyManipulator/compile (line 729) model = createMexPointer(model);

Error in RigidBodyManipulator/addRobotFromURDF (line 58) model = compile(model); % ideally this would happen on entry into any function...

Error in RigidBodyManipulator (line 57) obj = addRobotFromURDF(obj,urdf_filename,zeros(3,1),zeros(3,1),options);

I installed Drake 0.9.6 on Windows 7 with MATLAB R2013b (Everything is 64 bits). I appreciate any help. Thank you.

[RussTedrake]

Hi - thanks for following up on this here. I should be able to help if you can give me a little more information.

Can you show me the output of the following in Matlab (after running addpath_drake and before running your failing test):

getenv('PATH')

and

dir(fullfile(getDrakePath,'pod-build','lib'))

• Russ

On Oct 14, 2014, at 12:36 PM, joselpart notifications@github.com wrote:

Hi,

Following a thread about issues reported on the Edx Underactuated Robotics discussion forum -> I am having some issues with my installation of Drake. In the beginning, I tried the examples proposed in the installation instructions and everything appeared to be fine. However, today I tried to execute the commands given in the MATLAB example from Example 1.1 (Robot Manipulators) from the first chapter in the book and some of them where giving errors. Specifically, in the first version of the example I just got minor errors with the visualizer.inspector() function but the simulation run fine.

On the other hand, the so-called simpler version of the example didn't run properly. The baffling part is that the first time, the instruction:

plant = RigidBodyManipulator('SimpleDoublePendulum.urdf');

run properly but, after running the function:

visualizer = plant.constructVisualizer();

MatLab closed unexpectedly after prompting a message in the console which I couldn't get to read. However, after a few trials, the instruction:

plant = RigidBodyManipulator('SimpleDoublePendulum.urdf');

started throwing the following error:

Invalid MEX-file 'D:\My Documents\Courses\Underactuated Robots\drake-distro\drake\systems\plants\constructModelmex.mexw64': The specified module cannot be found.

Error in RigidBodyManipulator/createMexPointer (line 1776) obj.mex_model_ptr = constructModelmex(obj);

Error in RigidBodyManipulator/compile (line 729) model = createMexPointer(model);

Error in RigidBodyManipulator/addRobotFromURDF (line 58) model = compile(model); % ideally this would happen on entry into any function...

Error in RigidBodyManipulator (line 57) obj = addRobotFromURDF(obj,urdf_filename,zeros(3,1),zeros(3,1),options);

I installed Drake 0.9.6 on Windows 7 with MATLAB R2013b (Everything is 64 bits). I appreciate any help. Thank you.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[joselpart]

Hi Russ,

The output to the first command is:

C:\ProgramData\Oracle\Java\javapath;C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live;C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.9\miktex\bin\x64\;C:\Program Files\WIDCOMM\Bluetooth Software\;C:\Program Files\WIDCOMM\Bluetooth Software\syswow64;C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2013b\runtime\win64;C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2013b\bin;;;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Shared;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Windows Performance Toolkit\;C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_51\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\CMake\bin

The output to the second command is:

. drakeIK.exp
.. drakeIK.lib
drakeCollision.dll drakeIKoptions.dll
drakeCollision.dll.manifest drakeIKoptions.dll.manifest
drakeCollision.exp drakeIKoptions.exp
drakeCollision.lib drakeIKoptions.lib
drakeConstructRigidBodyConstraint.dll drakeRBM.dll
drakeConstructRigidBodyConstraint.dll.manifest drakeRBM.dll.manifest
drakeConstructRigidBodyConstraint.exp drakeRBM.exp
drakeConstructRigidBodyConstraint.lib drakeRBM.lib
drakeControlUtil.dll drakeRigidBodyConstraint.dll
drakeControlUtil.dll.manifest drakeRigidBodyConstraint.dll.manifest
drakeControlUtil.exp drakeRigidBodyConstraint.exp
drakeControlUtil.lib drakeRigidBodyConstraint.lib
drakeGeometryUtil.dll drakeUtil.dll
drakeGeometryUtil.dll.manifest drakeUtil.dll.manifest
drakeGeometryUtil.exp drakeUtil.exp
drakeGeometryUtil.lib drakeUtil.lib
drakeIK.dll
drakeIK.dll.manifest

Thank you for your help.

Kind regards,

Jose Part

Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 18:10:14 -0700 From: notifications@github.com To: drake@noreply.github.com CC: joselpart@hotmail.com Subject: Re: [drake] Issues with Drake reported in the discussion forum of Underactuated robotics (Edx course) (#490)

Hi - thanks for following up on this here. I should be able to help if you can give me a little more information.

Can you show me the output of the following in Matlab (after running addpath_drake and before running your failing test):

getenv('PATH')

and

dir(fullfile(getDrakePath,'pod-build','lib'))

• Russ

On Oct 14, 2014, at 12:36 PM, joselpart notifications@github.com wrote:

Hi,

Following a thread about issues reported on the Edx Underactuated Robotics discussion forum -> I am having some issues with my installation of Drake. In the beginning, I tried the examples proposed in the installation instructions and everything appeared to be fine. However, today I tried to execute the commands given in the MATLAB example from Example 1.1 (Robot Manipulators) from the first chapter in the book and some of them where giving errors. Specifically, in the first version of the example I just got minor errors with the visualizer.inspector() function but the simulation run fine.

On the other hand, the so-called simpler version of the example didn't run properly. The baffling part is that the first time, the instruction:

plant = RigidBodyManipulator('SimpleDoublePendulum.urdf');

run properly but, after running the function:

visualizer = plant.constructVisualizer();

MatLab closed unexpectedly after prompting a message in the console which I couldn't get to read. However, after a few trials, the instruction:

plant = RigidBodyManipulator('SimpleDoublePendulum.urdf');

started throwing the following error:

Invalid MEX-file 'D:\My Documents\Courses\Underactuated

Robots\drake-distro\drake\systems\plants\constructModelmex.mexw64': The specified module cannot be found.

Error in RigidBodyManipulator/createMexPointer (line 1776)

obj.mex_model_ptr = constructModelmex(obj);

Error in RigidBodyManipulator/compile (line 729)

model = createMexPointer(model);

Error in RigidBodyManipulator/addRobotFromURDF (line 58)

model = compile(model); % ideally this would happen on entry into any function...

Error in RigidBodyManipulator (line 57)

obj = addRobotFromURDF(obj,urdf_filename,zeros(3,1),zeros(3,1),options);

I installed Drake 0.9.6 on Windows 7 with MATLAB R2013b (Everything is 64 bits). I appreciate any help. Thank you.

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub. =

[RussTedrake]

Thanks Jose.

For some reason the path to these libraries is not getting added to your system path. That should happen during the call to addpath_drake. (There is a line in there which calls setenv('PATH')). Perhaps you can step in and make sure that this line is getting run? Is your system path getting reset by something else that runs after addpath_drake (e.g. in your startup.m)?

• Russ

On Oct 14, 2014, at 10:13 PM, joselpart notifications@github.com wrote:

Hi Russ,

The output to the first command is:

C:\ProgramData\Oracle\Java\javapath;C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live;C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.9\miktex\bin\x64\;C:\Program Files\WIDCOMM\Bluetooth Software\;C:\Program Files\WIDCOMM\Bluetooth Software\syswow64;C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2013b\runtime\win64;C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2013b\bin;;;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Shared;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Windows Performance Toolkit\;C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_51\bin;C:\Program Files (x86)\CMake\bin

The output to the second command is:

. drakeIK.exp .. drakeIK.lib drakeCollision.dll drakeIKoptions.dll drakeCollision.dll.manifest drakeIKoptions.dll.manifest drakeCollision.exp drakeIKoptions.exp drakeCollision.lib drakeIKoptions.lib drakeConstructRigidBodyConstraint.dll drakeRBM.dll drakeConstructRigidBodyConstraint.dll.manifest drakeRBM.dll.manifest drakeConstructRigidBodyConstraint.exp drakeRBM.exp drakeConstructRigidBodyConstraint.lib drakeRBM.lib drakeControlUtil.dll drakeRigidBodyConstraint.dll drakeControlUtil.dll.manifest drakeRigidBodyConstraint.dll.manifest drakeControlUtil.exp drakeRigidBodyConstraint.exp drakeControlUtil.lib drakeRigidBodyConstraint.lib drakeGeometryUtil.dll drakeUtil.dll drakeGeometryUtil.dll.manifest drakeUtil.dll.manifest drakeGeometryUtil.exp drakeUtil.exp drakeGeometryUtil.lib drakeUtil.lib drakeIK.dll drakeIK.dll.manifest

Thank you for your help.

Kind regards,

Jose Part

Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 18:10:14 -0700 From: notifications@github.com To: drake@noreply.github.com CC: joselpart@hotmail.com Subject: Re: [drake] Issues with Drake reported in the discussion forum of Underactuated robotics (Edx course) (#490)

Hi - thanks for following up on this here. I should be able to help if you can give me a little more information.

Can you show me the output of the following in Matlab (after running addpath_drake and before running your failing test):

getenv('PATH')

and

dir(fullfile(getDrakePath,'pod-build','lib'))

• Russ

On Oct 14, 2014, at 12:36 PM, joselpart notifications@github.com wrote:

Hi,

Following a thread about issues reported on the Edx Underactuated Robotics discussion forum -> I am having some issues with my installation of Drake. In the beginning, I tried the examples proposed in the installation instructions and everything appeared to be fine. However, today I tried to execute the commands given in the MATLAB example from Example 1.1 (Robot Manipulators) from the first chapter in the book and some of them where giving errors. Specifically, in the first version of the example I just got minor errors with the visualizer.inspector() function but the simulation run fine.

On the other hand, the so-called simpler version of the example didn't run properly. The baffling part is that the first time, the instruction:

plant = RigidBodyManipulator('SimpleDoublePendulum.urdf');

run properly but, after running the function:

visualizer = plant.constructVisualizer();

MatLab closed unexpectedly after prompting a message in the console which I couldn't get to read. However, after a few trials, the instruction:

plant = RigidBodyManipulator('SimpleDoublePendulum.urdf');

started throwing the following error:

Invalid MEX-file 'D:\My Documents\Courses\Underactuated

Robots\drake-distro\drake\systems\plants\constructModelmex.mexw64': The specified module cannot be found.

Error in RigidBodyManipulator/createMexPointer (line 1776)

obj.mex_model_ptr = constructModelmex(obj);

Error in RigidBodyManipulator/compile (line 729)

model = createMexPointer(model);

Error in RigidBodyManipulator/addRobotFromURDF (line 58)

model = compile(model); % ideally this would happen on entry into any function...

Error in RigidBodyManipulator (line 57)

obj = addRobotFromURDF(obj,urdf_filename,zeros(3,1),zeros(3,1),options);

I installed Drake 0.9.6 on Windows 7 with MATLAB R2013b (Everything is 64 bits). I appreciate any help. Thank you.

—

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub. = — Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[joselpart]

Hi Russ,

I am sorry for the delay in the reply. I haven't been testing anything from Drake these days. Today I checked what you told me and apparently, even though the path is added and I can use the following instruction: cd(fullfile(getDrakePath,'examples','SimpleDoublePendulum')); every time I open MatLab I need to run the addpath_drake file in order to be able to run the example I was having issues with. Now, that appears to be "solved" if I use the command every time...

However, I am still getting the second error I mentioned when I try to create the visualizer in that particular example. I checked online and it appears that the same issue has been raised in other occasions but I didn't find any solutions. I get the following before MatLab closes unexpectedly:

LCM not found. LCM support will be disabled. To re-enable, add lcm-###.jar to your matlab classpath (e.g., by putting javaaddpath('/usr/local/share/java/lcm-0.9.2.jar') into your startup.m .

Thanks for the help.

Kind regards,

Jose

[RussTedrake]

Jose,

Yes, you need to run addpath_drake every time you start matlab (some people add this line to their startup.m so they don't have to run it manually).

The LCM not found lines are a warning, not an error. Those can safely be ignored.

But you say that matlab is closing unexpectedly after this? I have not seen this nor had this reported by others. Any other information that you can provide (console output, etc) would help.

• Russ

On Oct 19, 2014, at 10:59 AM, joselpart notifications@github.com wrote:

Hi Russ,

I am sorry for the delay in the reply. I haven't been testing anything from Drake these days. Today I checked what you told me and apparently, even though the path is added and I can use the following instruction: cd(fullfile(getDrakePath,'examples','SimpleDoublePendulum')); every time I open MatLab I need to run the addpath_drake file in order to be able to run the example I was having issues with. Now, that appears to be "solved" if I use the command every time...

However, I am still getting the second error I mentioned when I try to create the visualizer in that particular example. I checked online and it appears that the same issue has been raised in other occasions but I didn't find any solutions. I get the following before MatLab closes unexpectedly:

LCM not found. LCM support will be disabled. To re-enable, add lcm-###.jar to your matlab classpath (e.g., by putting javaaddpath('/usr/local/share/java/lcm-0.9.2.jar') into your startup.m .

Thanks for the help.

Kind regards,

Jose

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[joselpart]

Actually, that's the only console output I get... Today I was able to read it because MatLab took longer to close and at some point a window appeared saying that "MatLab found an error and it needs to close" but that's pretty much it... It just crashes...

So far, that's the only serious issue I had...

Thanks,

Jose

[RussTedrake]

Does this only happen for one particular example, then? On Oct 19, 2014, at 7:11 PM, joselpart notifications@github.com wrote:

Actually, that's the only console output I get... Today I was able to read it because MatLab took longer to close and at some point a window appeared saying that "MatLab found an error and it needs to close" but that's pretty much it... It just crashes...

So far, that's the only serious issue I had...

Thanks,

Jose

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[joselpart]

Well, only for that particular function:

visualizer = plant.constructVisualizer();

I used previously "visualizer = DoublePendVisualizer(plant);" and that was ok. I got an error when I did "visualizer.inspector();" but that wasn't important for the rest of the example.

I haven't tried Drake exhaustively but so far, that's the problematic function, at least in my case.

[RussTedrake]

Ok. please definitely let me know if you see it on any other examples. On Oct 20, 2014, at 7:12 AM, joselpart notifications@github.com wrote:

Well, only for that particular function:

visualizer = plant.constructVisualizer();

I used previously "visualizer = DoublePendVisualizer(plant);" and that was ok. I got an error when I did "visualizer.inspector();" but that wasn't important for the rest of the example.

I haven't tried Drake exhaustively but so far, that's the problematic function, at least in my case.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[RussTedrake]

will close this for now, until i have more information to help track it down.