Plugins

Choreonoid is a software whose functionality can be extended with plugins, and many of the functions of Choreonoid itself are actually implemented as plugins. This chapter introduces the main plugins officially provided by the Choreonoid development project.

Plugin Basics

Enabling Plugins

Among the plugins provided with Choreonoid, some are built and available by default, and others become available by enabling them as options at build time.

To use an optional plugin, turn ON the corresponding option in the CMake configuration when building Choreonoid from source. The CMake option corresponding to each plugin is explained on the page of each plugin in this chapter. For how to configure CMake options, refer to Building and Installing from Source Code (Ubuntu Linux) or Building and Installing from Source Code (Windows). An overview of the option list is also available in Optional Features.

Some plugins additionally require external libraries or tools to be installed. These are also explained on the page of each plugin.

Plugin Files and Loading

Each built plugin becomes a shared library / dynamic link library file named “CnoidXXXPlugin” for “XXX plugin” (“CnoidXXXPlugin.so” on Ubuntu, “CnoidXXXPlugin.dll” on Windows). These files are placed in the plugin directory of Choreonoid (the “lib/choreonoid-x.y” directory under the Choreonoid installation destination, where x.y is the version number), and are automatically loaded when Choreonoid starts.

You can check which plugins have been loaded by the messages like “XXXPlugin has been activated.” displayed on the message view at startup.

Note that once a plugin has been installed, it remains in the plugin directory and continues to be loaded even if you turn OFF the corresponding option in the CMake configuration and install again. If you want to remove a plugin, delete the corresponding plugin file from the plugin directory manually.

Basic Plugins

Plugins that constitute the basic functionality of Choreonoid. They are included in the default build and are always available.

• Body Plugin
• GL Vision Simulator Plugin

Simulation Plugins

Plugins that extend the simulation functionality. Each plugin that adds a physics engine provides a corresponding simulator item, with which you can perform simulations in the common framework explained in Simulation Function. For the list of available simulator items, see Simulator Items.

• PhysX Plugin
• MuJoCo Plugin
• Bullet Plugin
• ODE Plugin
• AGX Dynamics Plugin
• GL Camera Effect Plugin
• LivoxMid360 Plugin
• Multicopter Plugin
• TrafficControl Plugin

Model Input/Output Plugins

Plugins for loading model files and motion data in various formats.

• URDF Plugin
• SDF Plugin
• Assimp Plugin
• Mocap Plugin

Motion Editing Plugins

Plugins for creating and editing robot motions.

• PoseSeq Plugin
• Balancer Plugin

Media and Rendering Plugins

Plugins for playing media files and extending the scene rendering.

• Media Plugin
• Scene Effects Plugin

Scripting Plugins

Plugins that make it possible to operate Choreonoid with scripting languages.

• Python Plugin