Hebi C++ Examples

This repo contains examples for the HEBI Robotics C++ API.

Note that many of these programs contains hardcoded module family/name values, and these values should be modified to match the modules available on your network.

Downloading Dependencies

The C++ API should reside in a folder called hebi-cpp in the root directory of this repository. This must be downloaded prior to building, and there are two ways to do this:

1. Using the CMake project

   • Follow the instructions under CMake and the dependencies will be automatically downloaded.
   • The API's version is specified in projects/cmake/DownloadHebiCpp.cmake through:

   set(HEBI_CPP_VERSION "x.x.x")
   

   along with its corresponding hash:

   set(HEBI_CPP_LIB_SHA256 "longstringofcharacters")
   

   • To change this, first edit the version field, and run the cmake command in the build directory. This should give you an error containing the expected hash. Swap this in and run the cmake command again.

2. Downloading Manually

   • Prior to building, you can download your preferred version from the docs.
   • Extract the hebi-cpp folder from the hebi-cpp-x.x.x folder into the root directory of this repository.

For examples which use plotting, python is needed. To install it, execute "sudo apt-get install python3-matplotlib python3-numpy python3.6-dev" in terminal. (Plotting is enabled using a header file matplotlib.h which is a modified version of the one found at https://github.com/lava/matplotlib-cpp)

Use the same version of the C++ API that is defined at the top of projects/cmake/DownloadHebiCpp.cmake, as this will ensure all the code is compatible.

Getting Started

The 'projects' folder contains sample project files for different IDEs/build systems.

Currently, the recommended build systems is CMake, although it is possible to add the source files and library dependencies in Visual Studio, XCode, Makefiles, etc.

CMake

To get started with CMake, you must first install CMake. After doing so, you can run cmake to create the project files for your desired platform. You can run cmake --help to get platform-specific options, but here are a couple basic examples:

64-bit Linux; generates a makefile project

From the root directory of the checkout, run:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DARCH=x86_64 ../projects/cmake/

If CMake is configured to create a Makefile project (the default for Linux), you can then run

make

to compile the examples.

64-bit Windows; Visual Studio

From the root directory of the checkout, run the following in a command prompt:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake -G"Visual Studio 16 2019" -Ax64 ../projects/cmake/

Then open the build/hebi_cpp_examples.sln solution file, set the startup project to your desired example, and hit the green "run" button at the top of the IDE to compile and run it.

For other versions of Visual Studio, cmake --help will provide the exact syntax. For example, for 64-bit builds on Visual Studio 2017, change the final line to:

cmake -G"Visual Studio 15 2017 Win64" ../projects/cmake/

Note that if you have not installed the debug symbols when you installed python, then you will need to compile in "Release" mode for examples which link against the python runtime.

Directory Layout

• hebi-cpp The C++ API and C binaries are stored in this directory (if cloning the repo directly, note that this directory is created by CMake automatically, or you can unzip the C++ API manually into this folder, using the same version as listed at the top of projects/cmake/DownloadHebiCpp.cmake)
• basic A set of numbered basic examples that walk through the core concepts of the API. This code is the best place to start if you are new (note that to easily build the examples, use the project files in projects.
• advanced A set of more involved examples that go through various topics.
• kits Full-system example code for the various kits that HEBI produces.
• projects The directory where IDE and build system files are found.
• util Various utility functions that can help with control and full system examples. For example, joystick input code and gravity compensation code are contained here.