Urdf Visualizer

English / 简体中文

A VSCode extension for visualizing URDF files and xacro files.

用于可视化 URDF 和 xacro 文件的 VSCode 扩展.

Features

• Visualization of URDF and Xacro files
• Switch the display of visual and/or collision
• Visualize joint and/or link coordinate systems
• Display the joint and link names when hovering the mouse
• Drag and control joint angles
• Measure coordinates, distance, angle or area
• multilingual support: English, Simplified Chinese

  If you need more language support, you can raise it in the issue of the repository

Extension Settings

This extension contributes the following settings:

• urdf-visualizer.packages

  The root directory of ROS/ROS2 packages, used to resolve the package://<package_name> paths in URDF/Xacro files. It is recommended to set this in the .vscode/settings.json of your workspace as an object, where the key is the package name and the value is its path. Example:

  // settings.json
  {
    // other settings
    "urdf-visualizer.packages": {
        "fake_robot": "src/fake_robot"
    },
    // other settings
  }

  Equivalent to:

  {
    // other settings
    "urdf-visualizer.packages": {
        "fake_robot": "${workspaceFolder}/src/fake_robot"
    },
    // other settings
  }

  Currently, only ${workspaceFolder}, ${workspaceFolder:<workspace_name>} and ${env:<environment_variables>} are supported as special symbols in the path:

  • ${workspaceFolder} represents the absolute path of the workspace
  • ${workspaceFolder:<workspace_name>} represents the path of a specific workspace in a multi-root workspace.
  • ${env:<environment_variables>} represents the value of the environment variable <environment_variables>

  In URDF Visualizer ≥4.4.0, you can directly use relative paths to represent paths relative to the workspace, without needing the ${workspaceFolder}/ prefix.

• urdf-visualizer.renderOnSave

  Whether to automatically re-render when the file is saved.

• urdf-visualizer.reRenderWhenSwitchFile

  Whether to automatically re-render when switching between active files.

• urdf-visualizer.backgroundColor

  Set the background color; it needs to be a hexadecimal color code starting with #.

• urdf-visualizer.showTips

  Switch the display of operation tips.

• urdf-visualizer.highlightJointWhenHover

  Switch whether to highlight joint frame at top on hover.

• urdf-visualizer.highlightLinkWhenHover

  Switch whether to highlight link frame at top on hover.

Instructions

Important

Open VSCode in the folder contains all files required by the urdf/xacro file. Open VSCode only with the urdf/xacro file will make it unable to find mesh files.

There are two ways to start previewing URDF or Xacro files:

• In VSCode, use Ctrl+Shift+P to open the Command Panel and enter URDF Visualizer: Preview URDF/Xacro.
• Click the button in the upper right corner of the file.

Both operations require the URDF/Xacro file to be in an active state.

Operations:

• Rotate perspective: Hold down the left mouse button and drag in the blank space
• Moving perspective: Hold down the right mouse button and drag
• Rotate/Move Joint: Hold down the left mouse button and drag on the link directly connected to the joint
• Measure coordinates/distance/angle/area: Click the button on one of the four buttons in the upper right corner to start measuring

Install

There are three installation methods:

• Search for "URDF Visualizer" in VSCode extensions and install it.
• In VSCode, use Ctrl+Shift+P to open the Command Panel and enter ext install morningfrog.urdf-visualizer.
• Download the .vsix file in the Release of the repository, then select Install from VISX in the upper right corner of the VSCode extension, and choose the downloaded .vsix file for installation.

Known Issues

• When measuring area, if concave polygons appear, the area result may be incorrect

Release Notes

4.4.0

Added:

• Force highlighting of joint frames or/and link frames (joint frames shown by default) when hovering.
• urdf-visualizer.highlightJointWhenHover and urdf-visualizer.highlightLinkWhenHover can be used to configure whether to force highlighting of joint frames or/and link frames when hovering.

Improved:

• urdf-visualizer.packages now supports relative paths directly, eliminating the need to add ${workspaceFolder}.
• Optimized the display of coordinate frames, automatically adjusting their size based on the model scale.
• Improved the display and adjustment of joints.

4.3.x

Added:

• Tooltips for certain options
• Display for Joint axis
• Measurement of coordinate values

Improved:

• Differentiated Joint and Link coordinate frames with solid and dashed lines, respectively
• Highlighted corresponding Joint and Link coordinate frames when hovering over the model

4.2.x

• Added display of Link names when hovering.

4.1.x

• Add type prompts to the right of the Joint name in the sidebar.
• The continuous joint angle can be adjusted from $-2\pi$ to $2\pi$.
• Added a toggle to show/hide the world frame.

4.0.x

• Added multilingual support (i18n), automatically selecting extension languages based on VSCode language.
• Optimized the operation tips and added a setting to switch the display of operation tips.

3.x

• Add measurement functions for distance/angle/area.
• Add operation prompts

2.x

• Add the visualization of joint angles.
• Optimized the extension's experience.

1.x

Initial release of URDF Visualizer.