Create z,x,y, timestamp messages to publish to the simulator topic tree on the broker.

[theAgingApprentice]

Send X,Y,Z and timestamp data to the MQTT broker's robot name/simulator topic tree.

[nerdoug]

Musings on the data structure of robot-to-simulator messages:

There are 2 use cases where the data generated by the robots leg movement software needs to be transmitted to the simulator system: 1) near real time display of a representation of the robot 2) logging of the robot's movements to allow offline analysis, perhaps using slow motion, or a variety of camera angles for troubleshooting, gait analysis, etc

• The simplest data structure must represent points in 3D space, and lines between some of these points
• There can be a mapping between these points and key points in CAD representations of robot parts, so that more realistic displays can be generated. This gets complicated, with the need to specify a CAD part number, the corresponding CAD point, and some orientation information.
• For offline analysis, a timestamp is required for the animation "frames" so the cadence can be reproduced.
• It is desirable to minimize the data traffic for animation data, especially if the Quality Of Service setting requires acknowledgement messages
• one approach is to format the data as a series of lines, consisting of the (x,y,z) coordinates for 2 endpoints, with a line joining them. For example, a robot leg could be represented by these lines:
  • toe to ankle (Xt, Yt, Zt) - (Xa, Ya, Za)
  • ankle to knee
  • knee to hip
• you could reduce message volume by combining connected lines in one command, (Xt, Yt, Zt) - (Xa, Ya, Za) - (Xk, Yk, Zk) - (Xh, Yh, Zh)
• might want to associate a class type with lines (leg part, chassis part) to control line width and colouring