Changes in This Release​

Major version increase.

• Updated MoveIt version to include planning pipeline refactor and per-joint limit margins in MoveIt Servo.
• Added new Parameter Manager node to store and retrieve joint state and pose parameters set from the UI for manual control applications.
• New Behaviors:
  • ExtractGraspableObjectPose - Given a Graspable Object, returns its pose to an output port.
    • RetrieveJointStateParameter / RetrievePoseParameter - Retrieve joint states and poses that are set from the UI for manual control applications.
    • PublishStaticFrame - Publishes a static transform to the tf2 buffer.
    • PublishString - Publishes a string to a specified ROS topic.
• Behavior Changes:
  • AveragePoseStamped - No longer an experimental Behavior. Can be used multiple times in a single Objective, improved orientation averaging, and configurable for finite-time vs. continuously running operation.
    • Pick AprilTag Labeled Object tutorial updated with new pose averaging capabilities.
    • GetJointStateFromUser removed in favor of RetrieveJointStateParameter.
    • SetupMTCMoveAlongFrameAxis - Get all input parameters from individual ports instead of a YAML file.
    • YAML read/write Behaviors:
      • New LoadFromYaml, LoadMultipleFromYaml, and SaveToYaml base classes for authoring custom Behaviors.
        • All Behaviors now support absolute paths and relative paths to the configuration folder (${HOME}/.config/moveit_pro/<config_package_name>/objectives) folder.
        • SaveJointTrajectoryToYaml / SavePoseToYaml - Refactored to reuse generic implementation.
        • WritePoseToYaml removed in favor of SavePoseToYaml.
    • Behavior interface for developers:
      • Replaced all uses of fp::Result with tl::expected.
        • ActionClientBehaviorBase base class now provides a processFeedback function to insert user code for handling action feedback.
• moveit_studio_agent_msgs package moved to the public moveit_studio_sdk repository.
• Added integration testing reference package to moveit_studio_ws repository, including CI support.
• UI Updates:
  • New debug overlay when planning fails with PlanMTCTask Behavior.
    • Added debugging resume button to be used along with BreakpointSubscriber Behaviors.
    • Allow streaming images from arbitrary ROS topics.
    • Show pre- and post-conditions in Behavior Tree editor.
    • Trajectory previewing: Display planning algorithms, replaced stepped with simplified approval view.
    • Removed Logs tab.

Changes in This Release​

• New Behaviors:
  • Point Cloud Manipulation Behaviors:
    • MergePointClouds - For merging multiple point clouds into a single cloud.
      • AddPointCloudToVector - Adds a point cloud to a vector of point clouds.
      • TransformPointCloud, TransformPointCloudFrame - For transforming point cloud frames.
    • Grasping and Planning Behaviors:
      • AddSubframeToObject, GetGraspAndTwistSubframes, GetMoveAlongArcSubframes - For interacting with object affordances in planning tasks.
        • TransformPoseWithPose - For applying transforms (as poses) to poses.
        • PublishStaticFrame - Publishes static transforms to tf2.
    • Utility and Testing Behaviors:
      • ReadTextFileAsString - Reads the contents of a text file as a string.
        • LoadSubframesFromYaml - Loads a set of frames from a persisted file.
        • LoadPoseStampedVectorFromYaml - Loads a set of PoseStamped objects from a yaml file into a vector.
        • GenerateObjectsInBox - For testing; can be used to generate random cuboids in a bounding volume.
        • ForEachPoseStamped - Iterates over a vector of poses.
• Behavior Changes:
  • LoadPointCloudFromFile - New scaling factor added for resizing imported meshes if needed.
    • GetMasks2DAction - Option added for filtering masks by object classes.
• Documentation changes:
  • Significant changes have been made to the Developer Overlay Workflow.
  • New tutorials for retrieving the latest message from a topic.
  • New tutorial for publishing a message to a topic.
• UI Updates:
  • Additional color and skinning updates to the Behavior Tree panels.
    • Fixed synchronization issues when deleting Behavior Tree nodes.
    • Prevent users from updating subtrees in certain scenarios.

Changes in This Release​

• New and modified perception Behaviors:
  • RegisterPointClouds - Finds the pose of a target point cloud relative to another point cloud using the Iterative Closest Point (ICP) algorithm.
    • GetGraspableObjectsFromMasks3D - Outputs a GraspableObject for each point cloud fragment represented by a 3D mask.
    • LoadPointCloudFromFile - Now supports loading point clouds in either .pcd or .stl formats.
• New MoveIt Task Constructor Behaviors and Functionality:
  • SetupMTCAttachObject and SetupMTCDetachObject - Can be used to attach or detach a GraspableObject from the planning scene to a robot frame.
    • SetupMTCUpdateObjectCollisionRule - Enables adjusting collision rules between GraspableObjects and other entities in the planning scene.
    • Add additional logging for error states when initializing MTC tasks.
    • Better error handling for misconfigured planning groups in MTC Behaviors.
• Improvements to Cartesian Path Planning:
  • Additional information on Path IK failures will be logged to the MoveIt Studio console.
    • PlanCartesianPath and ValidateTrajectory - Will always return a complete or partial debug solution for use in trajectory previews.
    • Refer to the Cartesian Path Following tutorial for additional information.
• Updates to Manual Control and teleoperation:
  • Pulled in additional fixes and upgrades for MoveIt Servo that may require updates to configuration packages.
    • Added support for switching planning groups when Teleoperating.
• New user guides for connecting MoveIt Studio to hardware.
• Removed some hardware drivers from core MoveIt Studio binary images.
  • Most notably the ROS 2 Robotiq Gripper Drivers.
• Removed experimental TAMP Behaviors previously added in 2.8.0.
  • Please contact us if you require access to Behaviors such as GetPlanUsingTAMP or CreateBehaviorTreeFromTaskPlan.
• UI Updates:
  • Tweaked color schemes for W3C compliance for color-blindness.
    • Adjusted Joint Sliders in the Manual Control tab to support prismatic joints.
    • Port descriptions for Behaviors are now shown in the Objective Editor's sidebar.
    • Added navigation between the Behavior Tree status window directly to the Objective Editor.
    • General improvements for nested subtrees.

• Fix issues with collision checking in manual control.

• Upgrade to newer versions of MoveIt Task Constructor and MoveIt2.
• New motion planning Behaviors:
  • PlanCartesianPath, ValidateTrajectory and ExecuteFollowJointTrajectory - Behaviors to compute, validate, and execute Cartesian trajectories.
    • SaveJointTrajectoryFromYaml and LoadJointTrajectoryFromYaml - Saves/Loads joint trajectories from/to the blackboard in yaml format.
    • GetAffordancePoses - Returns a vector of affordance stamped poses relative to a graspable object's reference frame.
• Cartesian Path Following tutorial updated for new Behaviors.
• New perception Behaviors:
  • GetMasks3DFromMasks2D - Given a point cloud of a scene and 2D masks from an image of the scene, output a point cloud mask for each image mask.
    • GetPointCloudFromMask3D - Returns a point cloud with the points selected by a 3D mask.
    • ForEachMask2D and ForEachMask3D - Iterates through a vector of image or point cloud masks.
• UI Updates:
  • Ability to visualize SPHERE and LINE_LIST Rviz Marker primitives.
    • Show previews of robot waypoint poses.
    • Ability to specify planning group from IMarker.
    • Add ability to edit node name.
    • Print message when writing pose yaml to file.
    • Improve user experience when editing and including subtrees.

• Fix crashing issues for teleoperation when MoveIt Servo is misconfigured.
• Remove unused dependencies from the MoveIt Studio containers.

• Fix startup problems that may prevent MoveIt Studio from launching on some machines.
• Add troubleshooting steps for when conflicting applications are holding onto port 80.

Changes in This Release​

• Ability to teach pose offsets from AprilTags using the UI.
  • Added several new Behaviors to support this workflow.
    • (Experimental) AveragePoseStamped -- Averages estimated AprilTag poses to mitigate detection noise and stabilize results.
    • CalculatePoseOffset - Calculates the offset transform from a source pose to a destination pose, relative to the source pose's coordinate frame.
    • WritePoseToYAML - Writes a pose to a YAML file.
    • TransformPoseFromYaml - Transforms a pose using another pose contained in a YAML file.
    • Pick AprilTag Labeled Object tutorial updated to reflect this new feature.
• Upgraded to latest version of MoveIt Servo.
  • Separated Teleoperate Behavior and Objective into Teleoperate Joint Jog and Teleoperate Twist.
• New motion planning Behaviors:
  • AddCartesianPoseToSequence and SetupMTCCartesianSequence - Enables setting up a sequence of poses and planning through those poses.
    • CreateJointState - Create a valid joint state for your robot given joint names and position values.
    • MoveToJointState - Moves to a specified input joint state provided.
    • SetupMTCFromSolution - Provides an alternative to SetupMTCCurrentState to initialize a MoveIt Task Constructor (MTC) task from the final state of a previously computed solution.
• New perception Behaviors:
  • LoadImageFromFile - Loads an image from a file as a ROS Image message.
    • GetSynchronizedCameraTopics - Retrieves time synchronized RGB image, point cloud, and camera intrinsics data from ROS topics.
    • FindMaskedObjects - Segments a point cloud given image segmentation masks and returns graspable object representations.
    • CropPointsInBox - Segments a point cloud given a rectangular region of interest (ROI).
• New experimental Behaviors for Task and Motion Planning (TAMP):
  • GetPlanUsingTAMP - Requests a plan from a ROS 2 Planning System (PlanSys2) planning server.
    • CreateBehaviorTreeFromTaskPlan - Builds an Objective given a task plan and a mapping between task actions and Subtrees.
• IsForceWithinThreshold Behavior refactored to be reusable in loops by reinitializing its running counters.
• Switch default inverse kinematics (IK) solver in UR example configuration to TRAC-IK.
• UI updates:
  • Create input and output port remappings for Subtrees.
    • Toggle log levels for controlling the amount information displayed on the screen.
    • "Convert to Subtree" menu options moved into context menus.

Changes in This Release​

• Simplified installation process by significantly reducing number of prompts in favor of default values.
• Added configuration variable to toggle whether MoveIt Studio should use a host-mounted DDS configuration file.
• Behaviors
  • Renamed MoveToJointState Behavior to MoveToWaypoint, as it accepts a Waypoint name as input.
    • New BiasedCoinFlip Behavior to simulate probability of success for testing purposes.
    • New GetMasks2DAction Behavior that sends images to a ROS action server using this GetMasks2D interface for segmentation tasks.
    • Reduce transform lookup errors in FindSingularCuboids Behavior.
• UI updates
  • Added support for Condition nodes in Behavior Tree editor.
    • Expanding a collapsed Behavior Tree node performs automatic layout only on the expanded nodes.

Changes in This Release​

• Added automated monitoring and restart capabilities to MoveIt Studio backend services.
  • Consolidates the Agent and Bridge processes into a single deployable service.
    • For users building in custom Docker overlays, this will require changes to your compose file.
• Additional improvements for the parallel planning pipeline.
• Added new MoveIt Studio SDK for external consumption.
  • Enables users to interact with MoveIt Studio Objectives using a simple Python interface.
• Initial support for setting constraints on generated MTC motion plans
  • New Behaviors include InitializeMotionConstraints and AppendOrientationConstraint.
    • Includes a user interface for building orientation constraints.
• Updated developer tooling for building on MoveIt Studio binary Docker images. For more information refer to the Docker Developer Guide.
• Documentation and support for launching multiple cameras on different machines added in the Hardware Setup Guide.
• Initial support for grasping with an EPick Vacuum gripper.
  • Added a new Behavior SetupMTCGenerateVacuumGrasps, for generating vacuum grasp poses with MTC.
    • Driver development is ongoing in the ros2_epick_gripper repository.
• Updates to Universal Robots example workspace
  • Added a pinch link to prevent UR arms from planning or moving through dangerous pinch poses.
    • New sample constrained planning Objective Constrained Pick and Place added in the picknik_ur_mock_hw_config configuration package.
• UI updates
  • New unified interface for manual control.
    • Additional logging when starting, stopping, and completing Objectives.
    • Improved functionality when expanding/collapsing Behavior Trees, including state saving in the Objective Editor.
    • General improvements and fixes to the admittance controller tuning utility.
    • Added search capabilities to the Behaviors sidebar in the Objective Editor.
    • Added shortcuts for opening the Objective Editor from the execution panel.