How to Run

1. Clone, build and source AMBF's restructure branch.

https://github.com/WPI-AIM/ambf/tree/restructure

git checkout -b restructure origin/restructure
git pull

2. Clone this repo outside AMBF source tree e.g. your home folder. Lets call the location of this folder as <surgical_robotics_challenge>

3. Now run AMBF with the launch file and ADFs from this repo as:

cd <ambf_bin>
./ambf_simulator --launch_file <surgical_robotics_challenge>/launch.yaml -l 0,1,3,4,13,14

This is an example of what the scene should look like (minus the motions of the PSM, Needle etc.):

4. To control the PSMs, you can run the following script in a new terminal:

cd <surgical_robotics_challenge>/scripts/
python gui_based_control.py

You should see GUI's with sliders to control the Pose of each PSM. Move around the PSMs and try to pick the needle.

5. To automatically make the needle move towards a PSMs grasp, you can run the script called attach_needle.py while the simulation is running. Once the needle is within the grasping area you can control that specific jaw angle (using the GUI launched above) until it grasps the needle.

6. You can press CTRL+R to reset the simulation. Press P key to toggle between mouse pan using the LEFT click or mouse picking.

Pairing Input Devices to Control Simulated PSMs

The code in the scripts folder allows the dVRK MTMs or Geomagic Touch / Phantom Omni to control the simulated PSMs. First run the AMBF simulation as described in step 3.

Next run the dvrk-ros application for the dVRK MTMs or the ROS application for the Geomagic Touch/Phantom Omni. Here is where you can find the relevant code for them:

a. https://github.com/jhu-dvrk/dvrk-ros (dvrk-ros)

b. https://github.com/WPI-AIM/ros_geomagic (geomagic_touch/phantom_omni)

Then run one of the corresponding python scripts:

a. scripts/mtm_multi_psm_control.py (For MTMs)

b. scripts/geomagic_multi_psm_control.py (For Geomagic Touch/Phantom Omni)

Refer to the README in the scripts folder for further information