Workshop: Robotic Fabrication in Rhino with the COMPAS framework

McNeel Europe

13-15 December 2021

👉 Slides | Overview | Examples | Requirements | Installation

Overview

Day 1

• Introduction to digital fabrication.
• Overview of COMPAS framework.
• Fundamental concepts of robotics: components of an industrial robot, robot workspace, control modes, robot positioning (cartesian and joint space) and singularities, robot coordinate frames and transformations.
• Description of robot models, the URDF format, visualizing robot models, interop with external model sources. Grasshopper integration. Exercise: build your own robot model.
• Forward Kinematics (in-process and out-process) and Inverse Kinematics (overview of analytic and numerical solvers).

Day 2

• Overview of supported robotic backends.
• ROS: Robot Operating System and the MoveIt! Motion planning framework. ROS communication model: topics, services and actions.
• Path planning: Cartesian and kinematic path planning from Rhino and Grasshopper using MoveIt backend. Defining goal constraints.
• Planning scene manipulation. Dynamic end-effector attachment and detachment.
• Describing assembly processes in code. Basic structure of a pick and place process. Approach frames. Overview of advanced assembly structures: graphs/partial orders/networks.
• Fabrication-aware design: the impact of sequencing in spatial assembly processes.
• Exercise: path planning of a simple assembly structure.

Day 3

• ABB robot control with RRC.
• Comparison of robot control modes: offline, online real-time, online non-real-time control.
• RRC control primitives: blocking, non-blocking, and deferred blocking.
• Overview of RRC instruction set: motion, IO control, custom instructions.
• Remote control exercise with one of the robots of the Robotic Fabrication Lab at ETH Zurich.

Requirements

• Minimum OS: Windows 10 Pro or Mac OS Sierra 10.12
• Anaconda 3
• Docker Desktop After installation on Windows, it is required to enable "Virtualization" on the BIOS of the computer.
• Rhino 6/7 & Grasshopper
• Visual Studio Code: Any python editor works, but we recommend VS Code and extensions, see the documentation
• ABB RobotStudio (only available on Windows, trial version available): Once installed, go to the Add-in tab, and install the latest version available of RobotWare for IRC5 controllers.

Installation

We use conda to make sure we have clean, isolated environment for dependencies.

First time using conda?

Make sure you run this at least once:

(base) conda config --add channels conda-forge

(base) conda env create -f https://dfab.link/mcneel-2021.yml

Add to Rhino

(base)  conda activate fab21
(fab21) python -m compas_rhino.install -v 7.0

Get the workshop files

(fab21) cd Documents
(fab21) git clone https://github.com/gramaziokohler/workshop_mcneel_2021

Verify installation

(fab21) python -m compas

Yay! COMPAS is installed correctly!

COMPAS: 1.13.2
Python: 3.8.10 | packaged by conda-forge | (default, May 11 2021, 06:25:23) [MSC v.1916 64 bit (AMD64)]
Extensions: ['compas-fab', 'compas-cgal', 'compas-rrc']