[plugins] ADD new Communication plugin

[ErwanDouaille]

Here is a plugin communication The purpose of this plugin is to add ability to the users to simply send/receive data´s from sofa. Instead of creating many plugins for each implementation/hardware, we propose to regroup all of them in one communication plugin.

Actually there is two network protocol implemented :

• OSC (has packet size limiations ...)
• ZMQ

Improvements :

• better thread safe implementation
• more types
• add others library implementation

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This PR:

• [ ] builds with SUCCESS for all platforms on the CI.
• [ ] does not generate new warnings.
• [ ] does not generate new unit test failures.
• [ ] does not generate new scene test failures.
• [ ] does not break API compatibility.
• [ ] is more than 1 week old (or has fast-merge label).

Reviewers will merge only if all these checks are true.

[hugtalbot]

@fredroy any link to your current python investigations ?

[maxime-tournier]

Hi, great work there!

Just to mention that since the python plugin got proper GIL handling, it is also possible to implement communication all on the python side: just start a python thread and do the message dispatch from there using the python package of your choice. From there it's fairly easy to exchange data using a Queue between the communication thread and e.g. a script controller (in fact that was the main reason behind implementing GIL handling).

[damienmarchal]

[ci-build][with-scene-tests]

[damienmarchal]

Hello Erwan & @guparan

Was zmq installed on the CI ? I installed it on centos3 and ubuntu but not on macos & windows. It seems there is also a dependency on liboscpack that also needs to be installed Am I wrong ?

[ErwanDouaille]

AFAIK, @bcarrez installed zmq on CI ubuntu (or maybe not, just before vacations).

For liboscpack it requires a specific version : https://github.com/SofaDefrost/sofa/blob/sofaCommunication/applications/plugins/Communication/README.md If you install liboscpack from the repository there is some bugs in it.

About windows and mac I never tested on it. Plus, I have to write a liboscpack cmake find :/

[damienmarchal]

Thanks for the details. So It is consistent with what the CI is returning.

[ErwanDouaille]

[ci-build]

[ErwanDouaille]

[ci-build]

[ErwanDouaille]

[ci-build][with-scene-tests]

[hugtalbot]

Hi @ErwanDouaille

Could you update us about the status of this PR shall it be pursued, cleaned and merged ? Cheers Hugo

[ErwanDouaille]

Hey,

This PR will be pursued, by the gsoc. I will chat with Rupesh tonight

[techytoes]

I think there is some issues with the CI as the communication plugin ran fine on my MacOS. What do you say @ErwanDouaille ?

[hugtalbot]

Hi @ErwanDouaille

How are you doing? It's been some time since your last update. Any news on the Communication plugin? @tgaugry did you use this work on Communication for your own purposes ?

Best!

[ErwanDouaille]

Hey @hugtalbot,

As I remember, the communication plugin is imo ready to merge. It still need some polish like, code cleaning, avoid some useless copy, use some boost things ... but it´s working.

On CI, AFAIK only the core communication plugin is compiled. We don´t want to install libs for all the protocols implemented.

What you need to know is, there is still pending PR (https://github.com/SofaDefrost/sofa/pull/20 with another one) for this plugin. But they are not working and I don´t have any news from the contributor (Rupesh gsoc). This is not a big deal because the content of the PR is an addon for the plugin Qt serial protocol.

Let me know if you have any question :)

[hugtalbot]

All scene examples in the Communication plugin crash, I guess the plugin is not activating thus generating these errors/crashes right @guparan ?

[guparan]

[ci-build][with-all-tests][force-full-build]

[hugtalbot]

[ci-build][with-all-tests][force-full-build]

[hugtalbot]

One warning added : CommunicationSubscriber.inl:36 (-Wreorder)

Two scene tests failing:

• receiverRequest.scn
• senderRequest.scn

and several others on CentOS

[hugtalbot]

Two scenes are related to network: maybe a socket is not properly closed?

[guparan]

[ci-build][with-all-tests]

[guparan]

[ci-build][with-all-tests]

[guparan]

Updated one last time and moved to https://github.com/sofa-framework/Communication Feel free to open issues and pull-requests there.