Quick Start

A license key is required to run MoveIt Pro; if you do not already have one please contact us for more information. By downloading the MoveIt Pro software you are agreeing to the Terms and Conditions.

Supported Operating Systems

MoveIt Pro runs on Ubuntu natively, but we also support Windows and macOS through virtual machines. Choose your computer’s operating system from below:

Ubuntu Linux 20.04 or 22.04 is our recommended operating system for best performance.

  • Note: Our installation process will not install ROS or MoveIt on your host machine, and will not affect any existing ROS workspaces or configurations you may have.

Mac support requires Parallels for hardware virtualization.

  • Follow the instructions to install Parallels on your Mac.
  • Follow the instructions to install Linux in a Parallels VM, selecting “Download Ubuntu Linux” from the options.
  • Once the installation is finished, adjust the VM’s allocated Hardware settings:
    • Shut down the VM via the “Actions” menu and select “Shut Down”
    • From the “Parallels Desktop” application select the “Windows” menu and select “Control Center”
    • Open the Settings menu from the gear icon of your Ubuntu virtual machine.
    • Select the “Hardware” tab in the configuration window.
    • Select “CPU and Memory” and select at least 6 processors and 6 gigabytes of RAM for optimal performance.
  • Restart the VM to continue installing MoveIt Pro.

Note: If you are using an existing Parallels VM, be sure to restart your VM before proceeding with installing MoveIt Pro. There is a known issue where your network configuration can become degraded in long-running virtual machines.

Windows support requires VMware for hardware virtualization. Note we do not currently support the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) due to its separate networking stack.

  • Download VMware Workstation Player.
  • Follow the VMware install instructions.
  • Download the Ubuntu 22.04 ISO. The download is ~4.6 GB, which can take many minutes depending on your network speed.
  • Create a new VM in VMware Workstation Player and install Ubuntu 22.04 using the downloaded ISO.
  • Once the installation is complete, shut down the VM and open the VM settings menu using Ctrl+D.
  • If VMWare shuts down completely, re-open the application from the start menu, select your VM from the left menu, and then choose ‘Edit virtual machine settings’ in the right hand window.
  • In this menu you will want to increase the amount of memory allocated to the virtual machine. We recommend using at least 8 GB of memory.
  • Ensure that “Side Channel Mitigations” are turned off, if the option is available. This option is not available in the free version of Workstation Player.

For the full system requirements see the Tech Specs.

Docker Installation

MoveIt Pro uses a Docker-based install to make ROS dependency management and compatibility easier. Note we do not currently support Docker Desktop due to its separate network stack. Check if you already have Docker by running in a terminal:

docker run hello-world
If Docker is not installed, click here.

Install Docker by either following the two hyperlinks below, or simply copy paste the below commands into your terminal:

  1. Docker’s convenience script
  2. Docker’s post-installation steps to ensure you can run without sudo privileges.

Quick Docker installation commands:

sudo apt-get install curl
curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh
sudo sh get-docker.sh
sudo groupadd docker
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
sg docker "newgrp $(id -gn)"

After Docker installation, verify that you can run docker commands without sudo. Note that you may need to log out and back in for this to take effect for all terminal sessions.

docker run hello-world

Install MoveIt Pro

First, ensure you have curl installed:

sudo apt-get install curl

Then, run in a terminal:

curl -LJO https://github.com/PickNikRobotics/moveit_pro_deb/raw/main/picknik/moveit-pro-5.0.1-any.deb
sudo apt install ./moveit-pro-5.0.1-any.deb

Then follow the prompts to complete installation. When installation is finished, you can type moveit_pro --help for help using the command line interface.

Note

If at any point you are given the option to remove files or folders with the name MoveIt Pro in it, feel free to do so. Folders that contain user configuration are automatically backed up.

Configure MoveIt Pro

You will be prompted to set up a MoveIt Pro workspace or point to an existing ROS 2 Workspace when you run MoveIt Pro for the first time. The default workspace (moveit_studio_ur_ws) contains a number of example robot configurations, and is a recommended download.

A workspace is required to run MoveIt Pro.

Do you want to download the default workspace now? [Y/n]

After configuring your workspace, MoveIt Pro will build a Docker overlay image with any additional dependencies in your workspace. When complete, the Docker image will be used to build your workspace using Colcon. Go get a coffee ☕. This requires a ~2 GB download your first time, and might take a few minutes to update and install your package dependencies.

Run MoveIt Pro

Next, let’s start MoveIt Pro using an example UR5e robot and a non-physics simulator. Since we won’t be connected to a real robot for this demonstration, we will launch our optional frontend to visualize and control the robot:

moveit_pro run -c picknik_ur_mock_hw_config

This launches both our runtime SDK in the background, as well as our Developer Tool frontend in your default browser at http://localhost/ that should look like this:

../../../_images/default_screen.png

You can also run the MoveIt Pro Runtime SDK in headless mode, have it communicate with your application, and visualize things through other tools like RViz:

moveit_pro run -c picknik_ur_mock_hw_config --headless
If you are using a firewall, click here.

The Cryptlex licensing servers we use in the US require whitelisting the following IP addresses and web API URL:

  • 52.223.22.71
  • 35.71.188.31
  • https://api.cryptlex.com:443

Servers in the EU require whitelisting the following IP addresses and web API URL:

  • 75.2.113.112
  • 99.83.149.57
  • https://api.eu.cryptlex.com:443

For offline authentication, please contact us directly.


If you have any issues, questions, or feedback

Start Example Application

To quickly see an example application (an “Objective”) click the “Run” button on the “3 Waypoint Pick and Place” Objective that should be selected by default when the application starts. You should now see the UR5e doing a very simple motion plan, and you can also introspect how it runs by expanding the Behavior Tree window on the right:

../../../_images/3_waypoint_pick_and_place.gif

Externally Trigger MoveIt Pro using Python API

Typically, MoveIt Pro is integrated into your existing codebase and tech stack - this is possible using our Python API tutorial. It will explain how to use ROS to start and stop Objectives using Python code. Another approach is to communicate using websockets in languages such as JavaScript, Python, Rust, or Java. This is documented in our Websocket Interface tutorial.

Simulate Computer Vision and Physics

By default, MoveIt Pro’s simulator does not use physics in order to reduce the installation complexity, GPU requirements, and computational load on your computer. However, MoveIt Pro includes an optional Gazebo integration that unlocks more advanced features that are otherwise only available when connected to hardware such as simulated camera feeds. To try out the experimental physics simulator with MoveIt Pro:

  • Close any existing instances of MoveIt Pro running using Ctrl-C on the command line.

  • Only the non-physics simulator was included in default MoveIt Pro. You will need to build the user workspace Docker image, then build the user colcon workspace:

    cd $HOME/moveit_pro
docker compose build
moveit_pro build

  • Next, re-launch with the following command to bring up the example UR5e again but this time in Gazebo:

    moveit_pro run -c picknik_ur_gazebo_config

You should now see MoveIt Pro with simulated camera feeds that allows our various computer vision algorithms to be tested. For more details see the Gazebo integration tutorial.

../../../_images/gazebo_objective_screen.png

Next Steps

To continue exploring MoveIt Pro, check out our next tutorial Running an Objective.

Uninstalling MoveIt Pro

To completely remove MoveIt Pro from your computer, including all user created configurations, run the following, changing $HOME/moveit_pro to your install path if you chose a different one during the install process:

sudo apt remove moveit-pro

Upgrading MoveIt Pro

The process to upgrade to a newer version of MoveIt Pro is currently experimental and may not always work if major changes to the install or configuration process have happened between releases.

For best results, make sure you follow the uninstall instructions using the documentation for your current version, and the installation instructions using the documentation for your desired new version.

To upgrade MoveIt Pro:

  • Remove the current version of MoveIt Pro as described in Uninstalling MoveIt Pro.
  • Continue to the Install MoveIt Pro section above, choosing the newer version when prompted. The installation script for the version you’re upgrading to can be run from any directory.

See Release and Migration Guides for updating to specific versions in case there are breaking changes that require additional steps for cleanly upgrading.