Jiminy-py

This release mainly enables to register discrete force profiles. It is especially useful to reduce computational cost when implementation is done in Python. It is also necessary to apply filters or hysteresis. In addition, many convenience features have been added to the viewer, and stability and performance have been significantly improved (especially mesh loading time). Finally, a few annoying but not critical bugs have been fixed.

New features

* [core] Enable to specify update period of registered force profiles.
* [python/viewer] It is now possible to add custom 'markers', automatically updated at refresh.

Improvements

* [python/viewer] Greatly improve mesh loading speed.
* [python/viewer] Enable to zoom very close in 'panda3d' without seeing through the model.
* [python/viewer] Add 'cone' and 'arrow' primitives to 'panda3d' rendering backend.
* [python/viewer] Add methods 'move_node' and 'set_scale' to move and rescale a single node in 'panda3d'.
* [python/viewer] More natural shadow casting in 'panda3d'.
* [python/viewer] Move named color support from 'replay' module to 'viewer'. Improved default color cycle.
* [python/viewer] 'set_color' now set colors of both visual and collision meshes.
* [python/viewer] 'set_color' disables texture if specified, and reset original color and texture otherwise.
* [python/viewer] Fallback to offscreen rendering if opening 'panda3d' graphical window is impossible.
* [python/viewer] Wheel click can be used to move camera lookup point forward and backward in 'panda3d'.

Bug fixes

* [core] Fix system states not cleared at reset.
* [core] Make it impossible to register external forces to the universe itself.
* [core/python] Automatically reset to Zero the return variable of functors returning that are supposed to return by value in C++.
* [python/viewer] Increase meshcat opening timeout to avoid false positive on low-end hardware.
* [python/viewer] Fix viewer not properly closed in some cases, and internal state not cleaned-up.
* [python/viewer] Fix viewer instance of simulator wrongly detected as still available after closing environment.
* [python/viewer] Fix delete-on-close for panda3d.
* [misc] Fix C++ error message not showing properly on Windows.
* [misc] Fix inter-operability with custom eigenpy/hppfcl/pinocchio install.

Miscellaneous

* [core] Increase constants + variable names memory size to align with common use-cases. Clearer error message in case of overflow.
* [python/viewer] Default rendering backend is now 'panda3d' systematically for non-interactive mode.
* [python/viewer] Only display relevant error messages (if possible) when starting panda3d.
* [misc] Check if Python executable provided to Cmake is valid.
* [misc] Make sure OpenGL is installed by 'easy_install_deps_ubuntu.sh' script.

This release focuses on performance improvements of Jiminy Viewer for 'Panda3d' backend. Firstly, most of the redundant computations and unnecessary rendering refresh have been removed. Secondly, 'av' video writer library is used in place of 'cv2', which supports 'h264' codec, resulting in faster generation (~40s for 1min simulation duration), smaller file (~15MB for 1min instead of ~50MB), and web-compatibility. In addition, a new rendering backend 'panda3d-qt' is now available, enabling to embed Jiminy Viewer in custom Qt graph, allowing complex interactions.

New features

* [python/viewer] Initial support of 'panda3d-qt' rendering backend.
* [python/viewer] Add method to update robot color on-the-fly (only supported by panda3d).
* [python/dynamics] Add XYZQuat to XYZRPY position and velocity converters.

Improvements

* [python/viewer] Use 'av' package instead of 'cv2' to export 'panda3d'/'gepetto-gui' video: faster, smaller, and support 'h264'.
* [python/viewer] Improve video recording speed even further by disabling panda3d framerate limit during recording.
* [python/viewer] Update collision geometry placement only once and only if necessary.
* [python/viewer] Improve frame capture speed (and thereby video recording) by refreshing 'panda3d' scene only if needed.
* [python/viewer] 'capture_frame' as raw data is now available for 'panda3d'.

Bug fixes

* [python/viewer] Fix panda3d screenshot wrongly removing alpha channel for '.png'.
* [gym/common/envs] Fix opening onscreen window at env reset if offscreen window is already available.
* [misc] Fix support of Ninja Cmake generator.
* [misc] Fix support of Cmake 3.20 on windows.

Breaking API changes

* [python/viewer] Reorder and remove some keyword arguments of `Viewer.__init__` and 'play_trajectories'.
* [python/viewer] Rename 'urdf_rgba' to 'robot_color' for clarity. Add 's' suffix to list arguments.
* [python/viewer] Replace 'window_name' argument by static 'Viewer' attribute.

Miscellaneous

* [python/viewer] Raise warning if 'enable_clock' is true and 'panda3d' backend is not used.
* [python/viewer] Raise helpful exception if 'replay' called with wrong urdf color.
* [misc] Avoid copying irrelevant files when build wheels.
* [misc] Clearer Cmake warnings for Ubuntu 18 legacy mode.
* [misc] To need to install wheels twice anymore thanks to new pip dependency resolver.
* [misc] Update dependencies to latest version available.

A few not critical bugs have been addressed and the API has been slightly simplify to avoid common mistakes while being less restrictive when possible. In addition, a few guards has been added to explicitly forbid wrong practices.

Improvements

* [core] Add Engine methods to remove registered impulse and profile forces, and all forces (including coupling) at once.
* [core] Throw error when calling addSystem/removeSystem for 'Engine' instead of 'EngineMultirobot'.
* [core] Get read-only access to global random seed.
* [core|python] Move log data cached buffer from python simulator to core engine.
* [core/python] Make log data non writable.
* [python/simulator] Merge 'run' and 'simulate' methods together and keep only 'simulate'.
* [python/simulator] Avoid unnecessary viewer refresh at init.
* [python/viewer] Enable forwarding by adding unused keyword arguments support.
* [python|gym] Setup viewer for new model at env level instead of simulation to avoid edge cases.
* [python|gym] Move 'BaseJiminyObserverController' from 'jiminy_py' to 'gym_jiminy.envs.internal' as incompatible with 'Simulator.simulate'.
* [gym/common/envs] Only check if initial observation is consistent with observation space, not if out-of-bounds.

Bug fixes

* [core] Make sure random number genetators are initialized at Engine level.
* [core] Reset random number genetors if desired seed has changed when calling 'setOptions'.
* [core/python] Fix dangling collision_data dangling reference in python because Model was deleting it by mistake.
* [python/viewer] Fix legend support for meshcat.
* [python/viewer] Fix custom urdf color support for panda3d.

Miscellaneous

* [core] Use C++ inheritence method hiding to deter usage of specialized 'EngineMultirobot' methods in 'Engine'.
* [core/python] Rename Engine 'remove_forces' method in 'remove_all_forces', which now only removes forces without calling 'reset' method.
* [core/python] Make private '_ControllerFunctor' and not initializable from Python. It is only used to convert C++ ControllerFunctor back to Python. 'BaseControllerFunctor' must be used instead in Python.
* [python|gym] Project architecture refactoring.
* [misc] Automatically detect pinocchio submodules at import instead of hard-coded procedure for maintainability.

Several random process generators have been added, namely `PeriodicGaussianProcess`, `PeriodicFourrierProcess`, `PeriodicPerlinProcess` and `RandomPerlinProcess`. They are designed to be used as basis to implement external force profiles. In this context, they have been optimized to computational efficiency rather than mathematical correctness. On a completely unrelated note, Python bindings are now more "pythonic", and registered external forces are now properly removed at reset.

New features

* [core] Add random process utilities.
* [core|core/python] Add getter for impulse, profile, and coupling forces.

Improvements

* [core] Change naming convention for consistency, aka 'registerForce[TYPE]'.
* [core/python] Full-featured std::vector wrapping.
* [core/python] Expose global random generator reset method.
* [core/python] Initialize random number generator when load python bindings.
* [core/python] Improve docstring signature type and keywords inference.
* [python/simulator] Make sure destructor cannot raise exception.

Bug fixes

* [gym/common/envs] Fix registered forces not automatically removed at reset.

Miscellaneous

* [core] Split utilities in multiple files.
* [core] Use unique_ptr to reduce header dependencies and speed-up compilation.
* [core] Remove some useless includes in core.
* [python/viewer] Enable EGL fallback for panda3d, since it will be provided with Panda3d>=1.10.9.
* [gym/common/utils] Remove Python native implementation of 'PeriodicGaussianProcess'.

Add new generic tabbed figure plotting tools supported by any Matplotlib backend, including offscreen 'agg' and Jupyter notebooks. It brings several additional features, such as synchronize time in every tabs and export of all tabs in pdf. Its overall performance has been significantly improved.

New features

* [python|gym] Add generic tabbed figure tool.

Improvements

* [core|python] Add support of non-contiguous temporary to 'register_variables'.
* [core/python] Allow registering 2D numpy arrays to the telemetry.
* [python|gym] Move '_log_data' from gym env to simulator.
* [python/dynamics] 'update_quantities' method update every quantity but the jacobians by default.
* [python/simulator] Enable argument forwarding for 'plot' method.
* [gym/common/envs] Log generic action automatically.

Bug fixes

* [python/dynamics] Fix 'update_quantities' not calling forward kinematics when necessary.
* [python/simulator] Fix log backup cleanup.
* [gym/common/pipeline] Fix controller wrapper not updating env action and not calling env 'compute_command'.
* [misc] Fix ipython tutorial.

Miscellaneous

* [misc] Remove force install 'numba==0.53.0rc3' on CI since 0.53 is now available.
* [misc] Consistent use of 'resource_filename' to access models data.
* [misc] Add Atlas in Readme instead of Anymal.

This release improves support of closed kinematic chains by adding analytical distance constraint between frames. It illustrates this new feature, Cassie robot learning environment is now provided. Apart from that, a few minor bug fixes mainly related to the viewer has been fixed, and overall performance has been slightly improved.

<p align="center"><img src="https://raw.github.com/duburcqa/jiminy/readme/cassie.png" width="350"></p>

New features

* [core] Add DistanceConstraint to enforce constant distance between frames.
* [gym/envs] Add Cassie robot example (Closed-kinematic chains).

Improvements

* [core] Improve performance by avoiding unnecessary copies and redundant computations.
* [python/dynamics] Add some RPY converters.
* [python/dynamics] Add options to use theoretical model when computing freeflyer with fixed frame.
* [python/robot] Add convenience property to get robot name.
* [python/simulator] Add 'command' tab to 'plot' method.
* [python/simulator|gym/common/envs] Replace attribute '_is_viewer_available' by public property to avoid redundancy.
* [gym/common/envs] Do not extract log if no terminal reward.
* [gym/examples/rllib] Do not return 'log_root_dir' at init because it is redundant.
* [gym/examples/rllib] Add option to record video periodically during training.

Bug fixes

* [core] Make sure application time of impulse forces are positive (not strictly).
* [python/viewer] Fix terminate viewer backend process when closing.
* [python/viewer] Fix error when closing viewer without waiting for init to finish.
* [python/viewer/meshcat] Increasing timeout to avoid false negative on low-end configurations.
* [python/viewer|gym/common/envs] Make sure viewer is properly closed after simulation replay whenever requested.
* [gym/common/envs] 'compute_command' method no longer update the internal action buffer.
* [gym/examples] Add missing examples tools.
* [misc] Fix wheel generation process corrupting png files.

Miscellaneous

* [core] Move Gauss-Siedel LCP solver in dedicate folder since several may be implemented.
* [core/python] Define meaningful argument names for constructors.
* [misc] Allow executing 'easy_install_deps_ubuntu.sh' multiple times without significant side effects.
* [misc] Make sure *.png files are processed by binary files by git.
* [misc] Increase Pagefile on Windows CI to avoid unit test failure when loading Panda3d.