Example session

1. Start the program from the command line (make sure you are in the mpk home directory, e.g., mpk_v1.0/):

     ./prog/fmstudio ./scenes/demo1.iv 1 2
   

   Replace '/' by '\' when execting this command from MS-DOS.
   You may skip the additional arguments 1 and 2 that define the planning task (these are indices of those configurations in scenes/demo1.conf that will be initially inserted as key configurations into the 'Plan config' list; see for more details). If you do skip these arguments, you will have to setup the planning task manually (see (*) in the next step). Take a look at the menu and status output inside the shell window from which you started fmstudio (you may have to scroll up to see everything).

2. Click on the arrow icon at the right top corner of the FMSTUDIO window (or press ESC when the mouse pointer is inside the graphics area). This allows you to enter keyboard commands. In the following, keep the mouse pointer inside the graphics window.

   (*) If fmstudio was started without additional parameters 1 and 2: setup the planning task by pressing ENTER, then SHIFT+END, then ENTER again (see for more details).

   The most recent status output in the shell window should now contain the following line (somewhere between a lot of other output):

     Plan config        : 1/2 * - not planned yet
   

3. Press F2 (this starts the planner). Notice the running numbers in the shell window (the number of samples generated by the planner). The planner stops when it has found a path or when it has reached a maximum number of samples. When the planner has finished, fmstudio again dumps its menu and updated status information in the shell window. Check the line that starts with 'Plan config...' again to see if the planner succeeded. If not, press F2 again to try another run of the planner. Repeat this step until successful. Once successfully planned, go to the next step. (Note: for the given example, the planner should succeed with the given maximum number of samples most times. To change this number for more difficult problems, see )

4. Press T to show the traced end-effector path. (For the simple demo1.iv example with a single rigid free-flying object, the path traced by the origin of the object's local frame is shown.)

5. Press F3 to smoothe the path. The smoother dumps information for each smoothing step in the shell window and stops after a certain fixed number of steps. F3 can be pressed repeatedly to smoothe more, if desired.

6. press F5 to animate the solution.

Try other examples as well ('.iv'-files in the scenes/ subdirectory).